The new conservative order and the dismantling of public policies to promote racial equality and combat racism in Brazil

Abstract

In Brazil, the election of Jair Messias Bolsonaro as president represented, in contrast with the democratic advances of previous years, the emergen-ce of a new counter-hegemonic order whose political objectives feed an agenda of dismantling, disqualification and delegitimization of minorities’ claims, seeking to contain the democratic advances that have happened so far. This paper aims to affirm that, between 2014 and 2019 in Brazil, one can identify the consolidation of a conjuncture contaminated by po-litical processes presented at an international level and that are eroding democratic structures, attacking the rights of minorities and denying the possibility of advances in human rights policies, all in favor of an economic agenda that seeks to guarantee the interests and social and political re-production of large financial capital and its ideological and political field. Our statement is based on literature review on the democratic crisis and the advance of a conservative wave at the local level, and on the obser-vation and monitoring of political facts and processes, which are linked to the agenda of combating racism and promoting racial equality, that sought to delegitimize and dismantle the Special Secretariat of Policies for the Promotion of Racial Equality (Seppir), denying and preventing the recognition and regulation of quilombola communities and encouraging or neglecting attacks on African and Afro-Brazilian religions.