https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1692-1985
![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
As the balance of forces in Brazil shifted toward conservatism in the 2010s, regional agricultural elites and Jair Bolsonaro formed a political-economic movement. This article analyses the constitution and consolidation of this movement, here called agri-bolsonarism, considering its connections with national agricultural associations and transnational agribusiness corporations and its relations with agrarian and climate politics. The research is based on participant observation in business associations, corporate and state archives and interviews with private and political leaders.
Acknowledgments
The author is grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their highly detailed and helpful suggestions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 This pact also involved distrust and growing friction, as happened, notably, during the administrations of the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, or PT) in the 2000s and 2010s (Sauer Citation2019).
2 Rousseff was a member of the PT.
3 Concerning movements in Brazilian rural politics, a contrast is important to further situate agri-bolsonarism. Agrarian social movements like the Landless Workers Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, or MST) often manifest a central characteristic that Tilly (Citation2004) relates to social movements: their use of certain forms of political action to put pressure on the state. For example, land occupations by the MST are especially meant to incentivise the creation of rural settlements by the executive branch (Fernandes Citation2005). Agri-bolsonarism had a different relationship to the state: it was built around Bolsonaro, a federal deputy running for the presidency (2016-2018), and consolidated under his leadership as the country’s president (2019-2022).
4 This criminal investigation was focused on corruption; it resulted in the imprisonment of ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and afterwards led to him being barred from the 2018 presidential election. In 2021, Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled that the investigation regarding Lula had been biased and restored his political rights. In 2022, the United Nations Human Rights Committee found that Lula’s prosecution had violated his rights to a fair trial and privacy and his political rights.
5 Analysed throughout the article, agri-bolsonarism’s ideology will be synthesised at the end.
6 According to Exame (Citation2019), one of the country’s leading business magazines, Nabhan Garcia
‘[…] became known for preaching the reactionarism that resulted in several conflicts in Pontal do Paranapanema [a region in the state of São Paulo] in the mid-1990s. Later […] his name was involved in a rumored arrest of a farmer accused of illegal possession and smuggling of weapons […]’.
7 This amount was equivalent to $35.80 at the exchange rate on 12 May 2012, when the meeting of the National Movement Against the Meatpackers’ Monopoly took place. An arroba is approximately 15kg.
8 Succeeding another association, the Brazilian Rural Confederation (Confederação Rural Brasileira), the CNA was formally created in 1964 following its recognition by Brazil’s president, according to a corporatist national law (Public Law 4214, approved in March 1963) stating that there would be one confederation of agricultural employers in the country (provided that certain requirements were met). Concerning corporatism in Brazil’s rural politics, see Welch (Citation2010) and Welch and Sauer (Citation2015).
9 Indigenous actions were excluded from these numbers of land occupations.
10 Notwithstanding the high relevance of the caucus in the process, for Rousseff to be effectively ousted from power, a conjunction of actors was necessarily involved. The heads of Operation Car Wash, the party leaders in Congress and the owners of the mainstream media corporations should be highlighted (see Hunter and Power Citation2019; Limongi Citation2023; Rocha, Solano, and Medeiros Citation2021).
11 Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro, or PMDB). At the end of 2017, the PMDB changed its name to the Brazilian Democratic Movement (Movimento Democrático Brasileiro, or MDB).
12 The change of evangelical actors’ voting preferences played a key role in this context (see R. Almeida Citation2020; Rocha, Solano, and Medeiros Citation2021). Likewise, the literature points to substantial support for Bolsonaro growing in other segments prior to the 2018 elections, such as low-income urban communities (see Feltran Citation2020; Pinheiro-Machado and Scalco Citation2020).
13 This initiative was partially inspired by Trump’s use of social media in the 2016 presidential campaign in the United States (Akram-Lodhi Citation2020; Feltran Citation2020).
14 A symbolic dispute was in motion, since at that time, the MST was organising its 2018 ‘Red April’ mobilisations.
15 When Bolsonaro was elected in 2018, he was a member of the Social Liberal Party (Partido Social Liberal, or PSL). After a period between 2019 and 2021 without a party affiliation, he joined the Liberal Party (Partido Liberal, or PL). A right-wing party with ideological malleability, the PL leaned further to the right after Bolsonaro’s affiliation.
16 If agri-bolsonarism can be understood as a component of bolsonarism (see, for example, Feltran Citation2020; Rocha, Solano, and Medeiros Citation2021), the former’s ideology clearly presents specificities, the centrality of climate politics being one of them.
17 For a critique of the depoliticisation of the debate around climate change, see, among others, Haraway and Tsing (Citation2019), Latour (Citation2014) and Moore (Citation2017).
18 As of 2023, Indigenous lands represented roughly 13% of Brazil’s total area, while agricultural lands corresponded to 33% of the country’s total area (Mapbiomas Citation2023).
19 In relation to land grabbing, see Borras et al. (Citation2011), Hall et al. (Citation2015) and Sauer and Borras (Citation2016), among others.
20 While 872 rural settlements were created by the PT government in 2005, only 81 had been set up in 2015: a decrease of 90.7% (Dataluta Citation2020). Among other factors, de-prioritising was influenced by political pressure (particularly through the agribusiness caucus), higher land prices (since market prices are used to benchmark expropriated land payments), and landowners resorting to litigation (Sauer and Mészáros Citation2017; Sauer Citation2019).
21 Especially from 2013 on, political pressure against Indigenous territorial rights was stepped up in Brasília, where the agribusiness caucus made threatening moves, including one to amend the country’s constitution so that the power to demarcate these areas would be transferred from the executive branch to the legislative one. Protests organised by Indigenous communities in Brasília were key in avoiding the amendment of the constitution at that period, but Rousseff’s government was significantly affected by the caucus’s manoeuvres, and demarcations were almost completely stopped as of 2014 (Carneiro da Cunha et al. Citation2017).
22 According to the Pastoral Land Commission, during Bolsonaro’s term, there were 7,925 conflicts in rural areas, most of them initiated by landlords or land-grabbing actors, and 136 murders occurred (CPT Citation2023).
23 The cattle rancher’s presence in the federal bureaucracy led to another relevant development: the government began to closely manage criticisms of the Funrural debts. Having been sworn in as secretary, Nabhan Garcia soon fudged his position as a staunch opponent of paying the debts and went on to say that Bolsonaro could not cancel this charge.
24 For a historical analysis of the expansion of agricultural commodities in this Indigenous land, see Ribeiro (Citation2023).
25 In April 2022, months before the presidential election, approximately 7,000 Indigenous people convened in Brasília during the Free Land Camp (Acampamento Terra Livre), where they defended their territorial rights and criticised Bolsonaro’s administration. Held annually since 2004 under the leadership of the Indigenous communities, the Free Land Camp is the most important national gathering for their political struggles.
26 Among other changes unfolding in this context, APROSOJA BRASIL publicly tried to overturn the soy moratorium (APROSOJA-MT Citation2019).
27 Analysing characteristics concerning contemporary populism, Borras draws inspiration from Tsing’s work to define the politics of appearances as ‘[…] the self-conscious making of a spectacle that is a necessary mechanism in gathering political support’ (Borras Citation2020, 9).
28 The number of military personnel holding civil positions in the federal executive branch increased substantially during Bolsonaro’s administration (see IPEA Citation2022).
29 In relation to the current debates in Brazil about (neo)fascism, militarism has been particularly highlighted (Reis Citation2020; Rocha, Solano, and Medeiros Citation2021; Sauer Citation2022; Schwarcz Citation2019).
30 It is important to note that these forces were not monolithic.
31 Concerning the expansion of commodities in the Cerrado, see Cabral, Sauer, and Shankland (Citation2023).
32 The Legal Amazon comprises the states of Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima, Tocantins and a part of the state of Maranhão.
33 Before joining Lula’s campaign, Alckmin left the PSDB and joined the Brazilian Socialist Party (Partido Socialista Brasileiro, or PSB).
34 Central to agri-bolsonarism’s anti-PT orientation was an extremist rejection of Lula, specifically.
35 Once more, the expression of extreme aversion to Lula from agri-bolsonarists
36 A culture that also operates to legitimise agricultural elites’ interests and right-wing politicians.
37 On these occasions, he criticised the demarcation of Indigenous lands, attacked the MST and defended easier rules for the use of weapons in farms. By the way, during Bolsonaro’s government, there was a significant increase in gun ownership in rural areas.
38 His son Eduardo Bolsonaro, a federal deputy, was directly involved in these initiatives.
39 Brazil’s Supreme Court banned corporate campaign donations in 2015, but individuals can donate up to 10% of their income to parties and candidates.
40 At the exchange rate on 26 October 2022.
41 These two politicians also had staunch support from agricultural elites in the state of São Paulo.
42 Concerning the historical political interests of the Corn Belt in the United States, see Winders (Citation2012).
43 MDB, state of Mato Grosso do Sul.
44 Lula fell less than 2% short of the number of valid votes needed to win the election in the first round (TSE Citation2022).
45 In January 2023, Tebet became Lula’s planning minister.
46 Even though Lula was the overall winner in the presidential election.
47 The Chamber of Deputies and Senate have 513 and 81 total seats respectively.
48 While these are ideological traits of agri-bolsonarism’s bases, they are not shared by all the local ranchers and farmers who support Bolsonaro.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Caio Pompeia
Caio Pompeia is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of São Paulo (USP). His research focuses on food systems in relation to climate, agrarian and food politics. He holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the State University of Campinas (Unicamp) (2018) and completed a PhD Exchange Programme at Harvard University (2017). Between 2021 and 2023, he was an Academic Visitor at the University of Oxford.