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Democracy as the negation of discourse: Liberalism, clientelism, and agency in Brazil
Author(s) -
ANSELL AARON
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1111/amet.12164
Subject(s) - clientelism , democracy , agency (philosophy) , negation , abandonment (legal) , politics , political science , sociology , liberalism , political economy , gender studies , law , social science , computer science , programming language
People enact democracy when they undermine their customary speech forms. This is evident in a small municipality in rural northeastern Brazil, where village‐dwelling cultivators and town activists are abandoning the practice of displaying electoral propaganda on their private homes because it evokes the shrill voices of domineering politicians and haranguing neighbors. An analysis of local associations among propaganda images, unpleasant voices, and broader genres of political communication finds that the widespread abandonment of propaganda images dramatizes the tension between liberal and illiberal imaginings of democracy in contemporary Brazil.