“AGAINST THE HOMELAND THERE ARE NO RIGHTS”

STATE OF EXCEPTION AND CONSTRUCTION OF THE ENEMY IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT OF THE VARGAS ERA (1934-1937)

Abstract

The article aims to analyze the mobilization of the concepts of exception and enemy in parliamentary debates during the Constitutional Government of the Vargas Era (1934-1937), using theoretical-political categories developed by Carl Schmitt as interpretative elements. From a historical-legal approach, we dealt with normative sources, with the collection of the Journal of Legislative Branch and also historiography and literature on the issue. As a result, it was found that there is a common thread that connects the exception and the definition of the communist as an enemy to the institution of the National Security Court, a court created to repress political dissent in the country, based on a discursive construction that manages to start from an abstract scope, in the first discussions about the 1934 Constitution, and reaching the concrete dimension of the repressive apparatus in the form of an exceptional court.