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This article investigates how gender representations were mobilized within security discourses by state authorities in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 1995 to 2018. First, we present the state of the art of the feminist international relations debate on gender performativity and militarized masculinities. Then, we analyze political statements and speeches by state authorities, offering new insights into the gendered nature of approaches to security policies in Rio de Janeiro. Our findings suggest that performances of militarized masculinity were crucial elements of public security discourses during the period analyzed. Significantly, we distinguish three main phases of public security policies, characterized by different performances of masculinity: (1) the mid-1990s until the mid-2000s, characterized by the representation of law enforcement agents as “police soldiers”; (2) the period of the Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora (UPP) program (2008–2014), characterized by the duality of a more feminine, human rights-centered security discourse and the continuation of the masculine militaristic logic, embodied by “elite squad” units; and (3) a return to the masculine war logic in public security during the federal intervention (2018). We contend that these performances of militarized masculinity contributed to the maintenance of a war logic as a central element of public security throughout Brazil’s democratic period, undercutting non-military approaches to governance and demanding tolerance of authoritarian measures and human rights abuses.

Police soldiers, elite squads, and militia: militarized masculinities and public security discourses in Rio de Janeiro (1995–2018)