God, Family, Punitivism and Neoliberalism

the New Brazilian Conservatism and its connections with the United States of the Reagan Era

Abstract

This work is a review of the book "O Novo Conservadorismo Brasileiro", by Marina Basso Lacerda and published in 2019. In the work, the author makes a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the parliamentary role of federal deputies in the 55th Legislative, which began in 2015 and ended in 2018. The core of the author's argument is to investigate the hypothesis of the existence of a neoconservative alliance along the lines of the neoconservatism of the United States of the Reagan era. Therefore, it proposes to investigate parliamentary action on issues such as defense of the traditional and patriarchal family, public safety and criminality, neoliberal proposals, foreign policy issues and, above all, issues of reproduction and sexuality. This last point would be the distinctive element of neoconservative action, both in the United States and in Brazil. Marina Lacerda identifies a group of 50 deputies who are protagonists in pro-traditional family issues and also play an active role in punitive, neoliberal and anti-communist agendas. According to the statistical tests of expected frequencies and observed frequencies (convergence tables), it was possible to verify that the variables evangelism, punitivism, anti-communism and neoliberalism are related. In other words, being evangelical positively impacts adherence to these guidelines. The work seeks to demonstrate the historical connections between evangelism and conservatism in the United States and also in Brazil, from the context of the Cold War to the arrival of the evangelical movement through radios, "televangelists", book publications and the circulation of pastors and leaders for training. and for training purposes The arguments studied in the book highlight the relationship between neoliberalism, the defense of the Minimum State and the emphasis on the family as a fundamental tool for solving social problems. In this sense, the decrease in social policies is contrasted with the increase in the importance of religion, church and family as instruments of solidarity and coping with social dysfunctions. The privatist ideology impacts in different ways and brings together neoliberal perspectives. Finally, the author manages to demonstrate the parliamentary role of the Brazilian neoconservative alliance, which was formed in a medium-term process of resistance to the transformations of the status quo, especially from the confrontation of abortion issues, the rights of the LGBT community and the issues of gender. She uses a set of speeches, interviews, bills, constitutional amendments and even posts on social networks to identify the role of this neoconservative alliance. In addition, the author also analyzes the speeches of Jair Bolsonaro as a deputy, one of the most active in the neoconservative agenda, demonstrating that Bolsonaro did not have this profile until 2011, when he began a process of approximation with the neoconservative agenda. The text is rich in details and historical reconstruction and its reading is indispensable for understanding contemporary political transformations in Brazil.