Description
The new Brazilian Antiterrorism Act (No. 13,260/2016) appears in the context of manifestations and state violence between 2013 and 2015 and precedes the major sporting events of the period. By verifying the implementation of this act it leads us to a discussion about the relation between state of exception and sovereignty in the present time. It is proposed to demonstrate the end of the antagonism between Rule of Law and State of Exception, and to observe how the Antiterrorism Act would fit as a legal bubble capable of justifying exceptional measures within the democratic hegemony. This Act works as a new legal instrument functioning, as a device of exception, which legitimizes the engagement of the armed forces in public security.
For this purpose, this work establishes a theoretical framework through the paradigm of the S(s)tate of exception and resume a historical investigation of the concept of terrorism to understand how this phenomenon has a defining role for the orientation of political agendas. Also, this paper intends to recover a historical reconstruction of the identification of the figure of the internal enemy as an inherent logic for the formation process of the Brazilian state and the use of its Armed Forces. Finally, it is shown that legal uncertainty expressed through the use of vague expressions fulfills a function for state power, that is, the Brazilian State has the capacity to act freely and to frame, at its discretion, social and political manifestations as acts of terrorism and allows to perpetuate the military engagement in internal security and further broaden its scope.
