MILITARIZATION, POPULISM, AND DISCOURSES OF LEGITIMATION OF CIVIC-MILITARY SCHOOLS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Abstract

This exploratory study analyzes the process of legitimizing civic-military schools on social media, based on 40 publicly accessible posts on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) between April 2024 and May 2025. It starts from the hypothesis that this process is structured according to a populist logic. Drawing on Ernesto Laclau (2005) and Letícia Cesarino (2019), six analytical categories are proposed to interpret the publications: moral and political polarization; leadership as the voice of the people; exclusive mediation; crisis narrative and permanent mobilization; accusatory projection; and populist militarism. The study further argues that the expansion of the civic-military school model contributes to social militarization, understood as the naturalization of power relations based on military ethos, a phenomenon with historical roots in Brazil. The results indicate that the model is promoted not only as a solution to the problems of public education but also to broader moral and social dilemmas, emphasizing values such as discipline, order, and patriotism, while criticisms are dismissed as ideological or contrary to the popular will. The study acknowledges its limitations, including the need to expand the corpus and incorporate the analysis of counter-narratives. It contributes to understanding the discursive dynamics that legitimize the militarization of education in contexts marked by political disputes on social media.