MILITARY ON THE MARCH: REACTIONS TO THE NATIONAL TRUTH COMMISSION AND THE (RE)ACTIVATION OF MILITARY POLITICIZATION

Abstract

This article analyzes the 304th Meeting of the Army High Command (RACE), held in February 2016, as a turning point in the political engagement of the Brazilian military leadership. It is argued that the meeting went beyond routine administrative matters,
functioning as a mobilization space where authoritarian memory, networks of general officers, and circulation into civilian positions intersected, forming the foundation of the so-called Military Party. The research follows three complementary methodological procedures: (i) discourse analysis of public statements by generals; (ii) a systematic survey of positions held by the 17 officers present at the meeting, based on official data from the Diário Oficial da União and secondary sources; and (iii) application of process-tracing logic to reconstruct the causal sequence linking the 304th RACE to the military’s political-institutional rise during the Temer and Bolsonaro governments. The results indicate that the 2016 meeting operated as a true “cadre pool”, taking leaders to strategic state positions and reactivating military tutelage as a horizon of political action, highlighting the limits of Brazilian democracy.