Reassessing the Literature of Military Intervention

Throughout the last two decades, much of the new research on Brazil has been focussed on the March 1964 coup that deposed Joaio Goulart. Included in this work have been the memoirs of some of the coup's leaders or their own polemical intervention concerning the organization and purposes of the military movement and their later deviations. The nature of the military is a theme of overriding importance for anyone interested in Latin American politics, first of all because the military initiated a new mode of articulation between an authoritarian military regime and the process of economic development. The armed forces led an intervention into the political system that contained characteristics that were to be more permanent and programmatic than those of past interventions, particularly the alliance with those with economic power who were to be the chief beneficiaries of the coup. The success of the model will have profound repercussions on Latin American elites by providing a technocratic demonstration effect of the apparent efficient reconciliation of security and development. Already in Latin America the Brazilian Model has become the archetypical model for future conservative projects of modernization. Second, it is important to understand that the process of preparation for the coup was carried out with great care. The coup was not simply a defensive act in response to a profound political crisis and the growth of popular mobilization. The coup was preceded by a carefully designed process of political organization that constituted the basis of the model. In this sense, the coup provides a perfect example of the mechanisms for preparing for a military intervention against a constitutional government-an intervention that inspired at least two

Authoritarianism · Democracy · Development economics · Economics · Intervention (counseling) · Latin Americans · Modernization theory · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Sociology · Brazilian cultural history and politics · Brazilian History and Foreign Policy · International Relations in Latin America · Law