For My Enemies, the Law: Political Subjectivity in Brazilian Corruption Allegations, 1930s–60s

This paper explores how corruption allegations and scandals interacted with claims to political legitimacy in mid-twentieth-century Brazil. During the 1940s, opponents of dictator Getúlio Vargas used allegations of corruption as a basis for their objections to the Estado Novo regime. Vargas returned to power in 1951 through a genuine democratic electoral process, but his second administration was also plagued with sensational corruption scandals. The most severe allegations were conclusively dismissed, but dissidents broadly alleged that the president’s corruption superseded these individual findings, making him unfit for office. Ultimately, such claims helped encourage the organization of a coup against the democratically elected president in 1954. During the same period, São Paulo politician Adhemar de Barros developed a strong reputation for his alleged involvement in corrupt schemes. Instead of having such allegations destroy his career, however, Barros was able to transform this air of corruption into playful campaign fodder. He became famous for the slogan “rouba, mas faz”—“he steals, but he gets things done”—and made two runs for presidential office in 1955 and 1960.

In its analysis of these two cases, the paper examines how mere allegations of corruption were sometimes regarded as grounds for political termination and at other times more easily tolerated. The paper considers differences between Vargas’s and Barros’s respective political projects and asks whether such differences may have played a role in determining how they were (or were not) held to task. While Vargas expanded rights for working class people, Barros was less threatening to the social and economic elite because he prioritized infrastructural development and public services, rather than durable rights. To what extent did these differences inform elites’ willingness to tolerate one or the other and what does that tell us about political legitimacy in mid-twentieth-century Brazil and beyond?