The pacification model in Port-au-Prince and Rio de Janeiro as a prefiguration of Bolsonarismo? Reflections on the far-right turn and the role of military-religious actors in security governance in Brazil

Abstract While much critical scholarship has pointed out that liberal peacebuilding can contribute to consolidating authoritarianism in host countries, little is known about the political effects in the deployer country. This article analyses the relationship between foreign and domestic peace processes and far-right forces in Brazil. We ask if Brazil’s leadership role in the United Nations’ Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (2004–17) and its own domestic pacification efforts in Rio de Janeiro with the Pacifying Police Units (2008–14) contributed to the strengthening of the far right in Brazil. Relying on a combination of literature review, document analysis, and fieldwork interviews, we argue that Brazil’s engagement in liberal peacebuilding processes strengthened the far right in Brazil in two important ways. The first was through a military capture of politics, as a large portion of the military elite that participated in both interventions enabled the military to take a more prominent role in Brazil’s domestic politics. Second, Port-au-Prince and Rio de Janeiro became crucial sites for experimentation with a range of policy ideas that Bolsonaro later capitalised on, namely, a punitive turn in security policies and the mobilisation of conservative Evangelical actors and morals to support and justify the military occupation.