DEMOCRATIC VIOLENCE

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DEMOCRATIC VIOLENCE 
Thomáz Matheus Aragão Fonseca 
March 2026 
The idea for the creation of this essay, or study, which may eventually become 
something broader, arose not only from observing in newspapers the expansion of criminality 
across all Brazilian states, but also from witnessing the concrete situation of neighborhoods, 
hearing accounts of everyday life, and clearly perceiving that factions and organized crime have 
begun to occupy the space that once properly belonged to the State. This is not merely a matter 
of reading; it is the direct perception of a reality that imposes itself. 
Criminality increases, violence increases, and what becomes visible is the progressive 
disappearance of the State in its classical form. The State in the Hobbesian model, in the 
contractualist tradition of Locke, Rousseau, and Thomas Hobbes, and the State also theorized 
by Montesquieu and Benjamin Constant, the State that should guarantee order, security, and 
liberty, shows signs of erosion. In its place, a parallel State emerges. When the State retreats, 
liberty retreats as well. Liberty, as Hannah Arendt argues, is essentially political; it depends 
upon effective participation in the public sphere. There is no liberty without politics. But where 
violence imposes itself and fear becomes generalized, the public sphere contracts. 
It is in this context that the title Democratic Violence emerges. If, in the past, violence 
and criminality predominantly affected the lower classes and the middle class, today that 
distinction is no longer as clearly marked. This is not to say that magistrates, judges, or members 
of the upper elite were never victims, but that such cases were rare and exceptional. It was 
uncommon to hear that a judge had been robbed, kidnapped, or threatened. It was uncommon 
for members of the political or economic elite to appear frequently in the same reports that 
historically affected the most vulnerable sectors of society. Today, this rarity has weakened. It 
has become more common, more recurrent, banal. 
Violence has come to affect those who once considered themselves protected by public 
office, institutional position, or economic power. Magistrates, prosecutors, politicians, 
members of traditional families, physicians, and entrepreneurs are no longer shielded by the 
positions they occupy. 
Here lies the central point. It is not that social differences have disappeared. They 
continue to exist. The wealthy may still armor their vehicles, increase home security, and hire 
private surveillance. Judges may request institutional protection. Yet risk remains. What has 
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changed is that untouchability no longer exists. The magistrate is no longer beyond the reach 
of the plebs. He is exposed, albeit with greater mechanisms of protection. 
Economic differences persist; risk, however, now cuts across social strata 
simultaneously. Violence is the most democratic phenomenon because it crosses all social 
classes. It is not democratic in a normative or juridical sense, but democratic in the sense of 
transversal exposure. 
In this sense, a stronger claim may be sustained. Violence has become the only 
effectively universalizing phenomenon within Brazilian democracy. It is in this sense that 
violence may be called democratic, because despite the persistence of structural inequalities, 
all social classes now experience criminality and violence simultaneously and visibly.