Authoritarian continuity and construction of democracy

Abstract

The main objective of the research is to understand the survival within Brazilian society of the gross human rights violations. The hypothesis of the project is that these human rights violations damage the construction of a universal citizenship and the credibility of the basic institutions for democracy such as those agencies and agents in charge for the law enforcement and the pacification of the society. Thus in consequence, the citizenship is weak. The questions of the research are how can the human rights violations live together with the rules of formal democracy, which are their effects over the political culture, over the relations of the groups and over the structures of power of the society. It will also be analysed the role of the human rights organizations to break this vicious cycle. This is also a multidisicplinary research with 35 cases from the 80 being investigated and related to: police, lynching, death squads and justiceiros actions. Legal documents were used to set these cases and to study the Police, the Public Prosecutor and the Judiciary performances on investigating the criminal responsabilities. Researches with representatives from these institutions were also taken. A non oficial set of the case was made through some interviews with the people who lived in the communities where the cases took place. It was created a data with press news about the 80 human rights violations. (AU)