How Bolsonaro was Convicted: The Role of the Judiciary During and After Autocratization
About this episode
The episode discusses the conviction of former Brazilian president Bolsonaro and the judiciary's role during his autocratization.
Former Brazilian president Bolsonaro was found to have attempted a coup after losing the 2022 presidential elections, and he was convicted to 27 years in prison. Such a conviction is unusual both for Brazil and in global comparison and speaks to the difficult but crucial role the judiciary can play when an elected leader tries to concentrate power and exceed constitutional constraints. In this second PPP episode about Brazil (you can listen to the first one, on the role of the military, here), host Licia Cianetti talks to Luciano Da Ros and Manoel Gehrke about the role the courts played in Bolsonaro’s downfall, based on their recent article “How to Bring Authoritarians to Justice” published in the January 2026 issue of the Journal of Democracy. Transcript here Guests: Luciano Da Ros is Associate Professor of political science at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil. His research explores the links between democracy, judicial politics, corruption and anticorruption, particularly in Latin America, and he is the co-author of the book Brazilian Politics on Trial: Corruption and Reform under Democracy (Lynne Rienner, 2022). Manoel Gehrke is a Research Fellow at the…
People in this episode
Host: Licia Cianetti
Guests: Luciano Da Ros, Manoel Gehrke
Topics covered
- judiciary
- autocratization
- Brazil
- political accountability
- democracy
- coup
Keywords
- Bolsonaro
- judiciary
- coup
- Brazil
- democracy
- political science
- judicial politics
- corruption
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Federal University of Santa Catarina, University of Pisa, Journal of Democracy
Books & works: Brazilian Politics on Trial: Corruption and Reform under Democracy
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