Paul Amar is Professor of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of
Rot Politics and the Cunning of Anticorruption / Política de Podridão e a Ardileza da Anti-corrupção: The Polysemy of Corruption and the Emergence of a Cross-Class Right in Brazil
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Published:October 2024
Sean T. Mitchell, Thayane Brêtas, 2024. "Rot Politics and the Cunning of Anticorruption / Política de Podridão e a Ardileza da Anti-corrupção: The Polysemy of Corruption and the Emergence of a Cross-Class Right in Brazil", Rio as Method: Collective Resistance for a New Generation, Paul Amar, Editor
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Corruption is an extremely flexible political category in contemporary Brazilian political discourse. It can be stretched to mean everything from simple robbery by politicians to undue influence of private interests in politics, perceived erosion of sexual moralities, and the undermining of race, class, gender, and sexual hierarchies; and, crucially, it is the term through which deficiencies in health care, education, security, and other public services and goods are often explained and understood. Drawing on ethnographic research, this chapter examines the polysemy of corruption among Cariocas from many class backgrounds to examine how the flexibility of the concept helped created conditions for a cross-class, right-wing political coalition that is novel in Brazilian history and, in important ways, centered on Rio de Janeiro. In doing so, the chapter focuses on how the rise of a popular far right in Rio sheds light on many contemporary uses of the term corruption worldwide.
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