Securitisation of the Brazilian Amazon: Roots, development and implications

Abstract

This work uses Foucault's critical discourse analysis to investigate the roots, development and implications of the securitisation of the Amazon conducted by Bolsonaro's administration. Through the examination of speeches, interviews, policy papers, laws, provisional measures and decrees, this paper demonstrates that the securitisation is taking place to facilitate natural exploitation, rather than protecting the Amazon rainforest. The anti- environmental agenda is an extension of the economic and political agendas of the administration, dedicated to foster the commodification of Amazonian natural resources for the economic gain of agrarian elites. This mainly serves the purpose of maintaining power through the increase of political support of the administration by ruralist parties in the Congress. To disrupt environmental protection, the administration sought to dismantle federal environmental authorities by weakening their monitoring competencies, by persecuting their civil servants and by substituting specialists in leading positions for militaries with no prior experience in the field. As such, the administration conducted a militarisation of the Amazon built upon controversial nationalist narratives and a portrayed idea that the Armed Forces are the only actor entitled to secure the Amazon,...