Perenidade da violência estatal no Brasil: entre a exceção e a norma no caso Guilherbaldo Macieira

Abstract

This study analyzes the persistence of state violence against political actors in Brazil, focusing on the case of Guilherbaldo Macieira. A prominent figure as both a journalist and a member of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), Macieira was persecuted and subjected to state violence during three distinct political moments in Brazil: under President Dutra (1946–1951), Vargas (1951–1954), and the Military Dictatorship (1964–1985). The research was conducted through the life history method. Sources were drawn primarily from the Pernambuco Truth Commission’s dossier on Guilherbaldo Macieira, which combines primary materials including official reports, testimonies, and police records. In addition, semi-structured interviews with family members were carried out, analyzed in dialogue with theoretical contributions from Political Science and International Relations on authoritarianism, the state of exception, necropolitics, and peacebuilding. The study investigates how institutional mechanisms of repression were maintained and adapted across these different political contexts, thereby perpetuating in Brazil the notion of a state of exception directed against specific groups framed within the logic of “enemy criminal law.” It places particular emphasis on the bureaucratization of repression, demonstrating how practices of surveillance and control were institutionalized by the Brazilian state under different political regimes, ultimately tied to an ideological matrix advocated by Macieira.