#16 – Raquel Pimenta on Brazilian PAL Studies, Bolsonaro, and Zones of Authoritarianism

Today, Fabio talks to Raquel Pimenta.

Raquel is a law professor at the FGV Law School in São Paulo, which has been the primary site of PAL research in Brazil. Their team, which Raquel helped lead, has just produced a forthcoming edited book on Bolsonaro’s rule and its relationship with the law, which comprises 13 chapters and involved 22 contributors. 

In this episode, Fabio and Raquel discuss the work she did to organize the Brazilian leg of the PAL project, which can be inspirational to listeners seeking to do something similar in their institution or country.

Fabio and Raquel also discuss some contributions stemming from studies of Brazil under Bolsonaro to scholarship on law and democratic backsliding. But they spend most of the time exploring Raquel’s own addition to such scholarship, featured in a special issue of the VRÜ/World Comparative Law journal.

Raquel's article, coauthored with FGV Professor Marta Machado, revolves around the existence of “zones of authoritarianism” within Brazil's incomplete “rule of law,” which predated Bolsonaro's rise to power. Bolsonaro, rather than constructing entirely new authoritarian structures, simply expanded upon these pre-existing zones to govern as he saw fit.

They finish with a discussion about Bolsonaro’s defeat and what the reconstruction of Brazilian institutions has been like after him. 

Link to the VRÜ/World Comparative Law special issue: https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/0506-7286-2022-4/vrue-verfassung-und-recht-in-uebersee-jahrgang-55-2022-heft-4

PALCast episode featuring Sofia Rolim (cited): https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/m2fbBs3RsEb

PALCast episode featuring Oscar Vilhena (cited):

https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/GFJYG04RsEb