The participation of the armed forces in the Brazilian political process is a phenomenon that originated with the country, that is, even before independence, the military, not yet quite national, wanted to make itself heard. As Ferreira (2000, pp. 48-49) reports, when D. Pedro I confronted the troop commander Jorge de Avilez on June 5, 1821, the law rejected arms and they determined the future of the former; The civil authority yielded to military force when, while remembering that «force is not the nation: it belongs to the nation», it agreed to depose the Count of Arcos and appoint Judge Álvares Diniz, whose name had been mentioned by an officer. Since then, there have been episodes that remind us that we have an armed force that tries to articulate what it means morally and legally legitimate. V — contribution to the maintenance of international peace and security; and The 1988 constitution is the most detailed — there are 250 articles that have already undergone 60 amendments (Villa, 2008) — but this is perhaps the reason why it is not functional and is often ignored. That is not to say that it has not fulfilled its role; on the contrary, it has promoted the consolidation of institutions, which is a sine qua non for the development of the democratic regime. Autonomy in law: the armed forces in national constitutions Only one paragraph. The Minister of State for Defence, accompanied by the commander of each force, will present the names to the President of the Republic, who will be responsible for promoting general officers and appointing them to their private functions. As recently (restored) democracies show, the withdrawal of military force, whose main function is the defense of the national territory, from activities related to public security is an essential condition for the attachment of castration to the civilian leadership and thus for the construction of democratic rule. Contrary to this command, perhaps due to the failure to guarantee the integrity of its citizens, the Brazilian government deployed the armed forces to solve public security problems, and even created a missionary training brigade to «ensure law and order» (GLO). Following the same sociological tradition, function is an internal attribute of the organism or structure, an order prescribed by law for a particular social position (Merton, 1992; 1979). In the case of the military, it is an instrument of state action that must be fulfilled by it when it is appointed to a certain position or rank.7 7 In Merton`s footsteps, the terms «role» and «function» can be replaced by «latent function» (unnecessary and sometimes undesirable to the agent) and «manifest function» (consequence of the agent`s expected action or behaviour).
Here, however, we have chosen the first option to better mark the differences between what the army does not expect, but which is attributed to it by society, and what the army expects, defined as part of its profession. In addition, the term «mission»: what the government orders and sometimes sets the pace to adopt. The basis for this classification is Merton (1992). More specifically, there is ambivalence in this area, since a certain social position may represent more than one role depending on the relationship between the position and the norm (Idem, 1979, p. 19 et seq.). However, the term mission does not come from sociology, but from an almost religious idea. The mission is the task assigned to someone who is obliged to perform it at the time and in the manner in which it was determined. By ordering soldiers to vaccinate workers, they are assigned a mission that initially contradicts the very function of the armed forces (they are not doctors, but soldiers trained to die, not to prevent disease). However, the same mission can represent the fulfillment of the role and even the function assigned to the military (in a peacekeeping mission, vaccinating people can help enforce order).
Article 4 In the event of deployment under the conditions provided for in paragraph 3 of this article, according to a message from the President of the Republic, the operational organs of the armed forces shall be activated, which shall occasionally develop in a predetermined territory and for a limited period the preventive and repressive measures necessary to ensure the outcome of operations aimed at ensuring public order. (Included in Supplementary Law No. 117 of 2004) We have seen above that the armed forces are organized on the basis of hierarchy and discipline. Organization Act No. 17 of 14 October 1969 authorized the President of the Republic to «temporarily transfer to reserve military personnel who have attacked or are likely to attack the cohesion of the armed forces» (art. 1). Such a transfer could become final if the Military High Command (Art. 3) so decides. Moreover, the final withdrawal of the soldier from the ranks of arms was imposed not by the first representative of the nation, but by a body which, although belonging to the executive branch, acted as an advisory body to the President himself. However, the armed forces do not have the independence and autonomy to act when they want. Taking advantage of the circumstances, a small group conquered the army and created a «new society,» no matter how partisan.
By assigning a permanent institution to the armed forces, voters collaborated in the autonomy of society from civilian power, and also legitimized it with the state (Ferreira, 1986) to legitimize its autonomy. Due to the success of Operation Rio-92, the use of armed forces for public security was considered part of their natural mission by the general population, especially the military, because of their more zealous presence in such situations. Thus, the suspicions that might still remain in the population about the bureaucratic-authoritarian regime were overcome. This is one of the explanations for the growing demand for the participation of the armed forces in public order, which has often led to advanced intellectual sectors.17 17 Although there was no consensus, an example of a defence of Castrense`s presence in public security was the debate held in the Anpoc National Assembly in October 1995. It was organized in the heat of the hour and brought together three intellectuals, including Alba Zaluar, who had given an interview to the magazine Veja, in which he apparently defended such a position. The document, signed by the Secretary-General of the Office, Leonardo Barbosa, states that there is no constitutional or legal provision referring to an alleged assignment of the armed forces to mediate conflicts between powers. «It will never be the task of the President of the Republic, under the current Constitution, to summon the armed forces to tell the Supreme Court what is the correct interpretation of the constitutional text in the face of a possible controversy between the two,» the statement said.