Comparing Transitions to Democracy. Law and Justice in South America and Europe

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-viii

   PDF

2. The Transition to Democracy: A New Object of Study for Legal History

   • Cristiano Paixão, Massimo Meccarelli

   Pages 1-7

3. Brazil

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 9-9

      PDF

   2. “Where the Silences Are Mute”: Political Transition, State Violence, and the Racial Question in Contemporary Brazil

      • Cristiano Paixão

      Pages 11-29

   3. Political Transition, Continuities and Permanences: The Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Political Transition in Brazil

      • Juliana Neuenschwander Magalhães

      Pages 31-48

   4. Unemployed People in Street Protests: Theories of Political Transitions and the Limits of the Brazilian Democratization

      • Maria Pia Guerra

      Pages 49-71

   5. Constitutional Politics During the Early Years of Brazilian Civil-Military Dictatorship: The Constitution as a Tool for Authoritarian Political Transition

      • Leonardo Augusto de Andrade Barbosa

      Pages 73-84

4. Comparative Perspectives

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 85-85

      PDF

   2. Transitional Justice and Sexual Crimes in Latin America: Argentina, Brazil and Chile in Comparative Perspective

      • Claudia Paiva Carvalho

      Pages 87-109

   3. Justice Entrepreneurs and the Struggle for Accountability in South America: Comparative Reflections on Transitional Justice and Operation Condor

      • Francesca Lessa

      Pages 111-136

   4. Mobilization and Judicial Recognition of the Right to the Truth: The Inter-American Human Rights System and Brazil

      • Carla Osmo

      Pages 137-161

5. Comparative Case Studies

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 163-163

      PDF

   2. Legitimation Narratives, Resistance, and Legal Cultures in Authoritarian and Post-authoritarian Chile: Lawyers and Judges in the (Post)-Transition

      • Cath Collins

      Pages 165-191

   3. Spanish Law: Coming to Terms with the Ghosts of Francoism (1936–2017)

      • Alfons Aragoneses

      Pages 193-214

   4. The Failed Reconciliation: The Role of the Judiciary in Post-fascist Italy and the Togliatti Amnesty

      • Antonella Meniconi

      Pages 215-239

   5. Punishing the Wrongdoers During the Portuguese Transition to Democracy: A Comparative Historical Analysis

      • Filipa Raimundo

      Pages 241-261

6. Transitional Time: Theoretical Approaches

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 263-263

      PDF

   2. Transitional Justice: A Likely Story

      • Gabriel Rezende

      Pages 265-277

   3. Taking Transitional Justice Carefully: Multi-temporalities, Care, and Inclusion in Times of Transition

      • Douglas Antônio Rocha Pinheiro

      Pages 279-294

   4. Time and Legal Change: Some Methodological Remarks on Italy’s Transition to Democracy

      • Massimo Meccarelli

      Pages 295-309

This present book examines some of the key features of the interplay between legal history, authoritarian rule and political transitions in Brazil and other countries from the end of 20th Century until today. This book casts light on these aspects of the role of law and legal actors/institutions. In the context of transition from authoritarian rule to democratic state, Brazil has produced a significant literature on the challenges and shortcomings of the transition, but little attention has been given to the role of law and legal actors/institutions. Different approaches focus on the legal mechanisms, discourses and practices used by the military regime and by the players involved in the political transition process in Brazil. A comparative perspective that takes into account different political transitions – and their legal consequences – in Europe and Latin America complements the analysis.

Part 1 (4 essays) discusses some of the central issues of political transition and legal history in contemporary Brazil, focusing on the time of the transition (and its effects on transitional justice) with different perspectives, from racial and gender issues to constitutional reform and police repression. Part 2 (3 essays) brings the comparative studies on South American experiences. Part 3 (4 essays) analyses different cases of transition to democracy in Chile, Portugal, Spain and Italy. Part 4 (3 essays) proposes a historiographical and methodological approach, considering the politics of time involved in the interplay between political transitions and legal history.

• Constitutional History and Transitional Justice in Brazil
• Constitutional Politics during Brazilian Dictatorship
• Constitution as a Tool for Political Reform
• Criminal Case n. 453/8; Maria Pia Guerra
• Violation of the Indian Rights during the Brazilian Dictatorship
• International Human Rights in Post-Atrocity Prosecutions
• Argentina Transitional Justice Experiences
• Brazil Transitional Justice Experiences
• Chile Transitional Justice Experiences
• Accountability for Operation Condor Atrocities
• Lawyers and Transition in Chile
• Transitional Justice and Remembrance of Francoism in Spain
• Togliatti Amnesty
• role of the Judiciary in the Post-fascist Italy
• Portugal's Transitional Justice Process

• School of Law, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, Brazil

  Cristiano Paixão

• Department of Law, Università di Macerata, Macerata, Italy

  Massimo Meccarelli

Cristiano Paixão in Professor of legal history at the University of Brasília Law School. Doctor in Law degree from Federal University of Minas Gerais, with post-doctoral studies in historiography at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales de Paris and in modern history at Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. He was a visiting professor at Macerata University School of Law and at the Master’s Program in Constitutional Law at Seville University, and has published extensively about constitutional history. He was a member of the Brazilian Amnesty Committee (Ministry of Justice), was one of the coordinators of the Anísio Teixeira Memory and Truth Commission (University of Brasília). His main research interests are constitutional history, law and literature, and interdisciplinary studies in law.


Massimo Meccarelli is Professor of Legal History at the University of Macerata (Italy), and affiliate researcher of the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History(Frankfurt am Main). He was visiting professor at: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main, Universität Wien, Universität Luzern. He is author of several works on history of legal thought, history of justice, historiography and methodology of legal history. Most recently research interests: law and diversity, legal pluralism, constitution making process, time and law, law and humanities.

Policies and ethics