SURVEILLANCE AND INTERNAL WARFARE IN BRAZILIAN NEOLIBERAL POLITICS

Abstract

This contribution examines large-scale global surveillance as part of a neoliberal warfare model that utilizes counterinsurgency tactics, such as the massive collection of population information through Big Data companies and/or security and intelligence agencies, which become psychosocial databases with information capable of reshaping politics. Private information operates the gears of neoliberal thought, transforming the entire structure of the State under the managerial logic of commercial operations. We argue that counterinsurgency warfare manuals can offer clues to understanding the contemporary internal warfare tactics practiced by neoliberalism. The control of such information, coupled with the growth of nationalist, anti-democratic, and neoconservative forces, creates fertile ground for the dissemination of disinformation (fake news) through thousands of WhatsApp groups (in Brazil) and for the manipulation of hatred and fear, among other emotions, as in the populist strategy in Donald Trump's first electoral campaign or in the Brazilian presidential election with Jair Bolsonaro's victory in 2018.

Keywords: Neoliberal warfare; Counterinsurgency warfare; Psychosocial databases; Anti-democratic; Brazilian election.

Rômulo Ballestê Marques dos Santos holds a PhD in Psychology from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, with an internship at Columbia University in New York, and is a Professor in the Psychology Department at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul/Pantanal Campus. He conducts research in the areas of Social Psychology and Political Psychology, with an emphasis on the relationship between neoliberalism and subjectivity.