Resumen

MENENDEZ, María Cristina. El principio de legitimidad democrática o el uso de la fuerza: El caso brasileño. Cuad. Sur, Hist. [online]. 2005, n.34, pp. 55-77. ISSN 1668-7604.

This paper analyzes recurrent military interventions in politics. It studies two types of opposing civil-military relationships in the Brazilian case: the civil control and the praetorianism or military control. In order to elaborate on these types of relationships, the paper focuses on the 1889-1930 period, which corresponds to the end of a legitimate monarchic political order and the establishment of a republican order which failed to achieve its political legitimacy, as a first explanatory approach to the phenomenon of the military participation in politics. The paper shows the existent connection among the political legitimacy, the climate of the period which was unfavorable to military political participation, and the military professional subordination. It analyzes different forms of political control that show the inconsistencies of the Brazilian system of political representation such as: the Politics of the Governors or of the States , the politics of the colonels and the politics of " salvaçoes ." The paper constitutes a first historical-political reply to a supposed univocal attitude within the military organization, showing the horizontal divisions among high-rank and intermediate-rank officials; and vertical divisions among the Navy and the Army, monarchists and republicans, federalists and supporters of positivism.

Palabras llave : Military; Civilians; Brazil.