Book Launch: The Faces of Authoritarianism in Brazil
Bush House South East Wing, Strand Campus, London
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Join the King's Brazil Institute for a book launch with Dr Andreza Aruska de Souza Santos and Dr Katerina Hatzikidi, as they discuss their new book "The Faces of Authoritarianism and Strategies of Dissent in Contemporary Brazil" as part of Brazil Week 2025. Professor David Lehmann will also be joining as a speaker, and Dr Felipe Krause as discussant. Lunch will be provided.
About the book
Rather than looking back into Brazil’s authoritarian past, the Bolsonaro administration (2019–2022) provides an innovative case study through which to explore Brazil’s manifold and recurring expressions of authoritarianism. This book investigates the ways that authoritarianism most recently emerged and how it was confronted, and, in doing so, the varied ways (and spaces) in which struggles over the meaning and practice of democracy that took place during the period.
The Faces of Authoritarianism and Strategies of Dissent in Contemporary Brazil examines repression and dissent: efforts to dismantle democratic foundations alongside forms of contestation and resistance to authoritarianism. The chapters offer valuable theoretical and ethnographic insights, from interdisciplinary perspectives, into the complex realities that Brazilians experienced in the four years of Bolsonaro’s presidency. The book is organised around four sections, each addressing a core area where democracy, as meaning and practice, was contested, attacked and defended. This is shown not only between Bolsonaro’s government and those who resisted it from within and outside the state, but also between state and non-state actors and between public and private sectors, allowing for a broad view of the country’s polarised political landscape and the impact such struggles have had on civil society.
About the speakers
Dr Andreza Aruska de Souza Santos
Andreza is Director of the King's Brazil Institute. She completed her PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews, and holds a master’s degree in social sciences jointly awarded by the University of Freiburg, JNU in Delhi, and the University of KwaZulu Natal, in Durban. Andreza completed her bachelor’s degree in political science at the University of Brasilia. Having studied in Brazil, Germany, South Africa, India and the UK, Andreza writes about Brazilian politics and city governance comparatively. Before joining King's, she was a lecturer at the University of Oxford and at Oxford she directed the Brazilian Studies Programme (2018-2023). Before that, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Oxford’s School of Anthropology, where she worked at the Urban Transformations portfolio (ESRC). She has previously worked at Brazil’s Ministry of Social Development, the United Nations Office on Drugs.
Dr Katerina Hatzikidi
Katerina Hatzikidi is a political anthropologist and senior postdoctoral researcher at the ERC PACT: Populism and Conspiracy Theory project at the University of Tübingen. Her work explores political and social transformations with a special country focus on Brazil. Katerina holds an MSc and a DPhil in social anthropology from the University of Oxford. She is currently the PI of an international project on anticommunism in Brazil, funded by the University of Tübingen’s Excellence Strategy. In 2023, she was Visiting Professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (IFCS/UFRJ). Among other publications, Katerina has recently co-edited (with Andreza Aruska de Souza Santos) the volume The faces of authoritarianism and strategies of dissent in contemporary Brazil (UCL Press, 2025). Her monograph Conservatism and Conspiracism in Brazil. A Time of Awakening is forthcoming with Routledge.
Professor David Lehmann
Professor David Lehmann is Emeritus Professor in Social Science at the University of Cambridge. The themes of his work are multiple: originally specialising in Development Studies, David began working on religion in the 1980s, first in Brazil, then in Israel and now globally. Then in the first decade of the 2000s David branched out in a new direction with a big project on the spread of multiculturalism and affirmative action in Latin America. This took him to Mexico, Peru and Brazil and led to the publication of an edited volume entitled The Crisis of Multiculturalism in Latin America (2016) and a book on Brazil: The Prism of Race: the Ideology and Politics of Affirmative Action In Brazil (2018). The latter is due to appear in Portuguese translation in 2025. David has also taught on Development, Latin America and Religion, and was Director of the Centre of Latin American Studies for 10 years. He has been a Visiting Professor in Brazil, Chile, Spain, Israel and France.
About the discussants
Dr Felipe Krause
Felipe Krause is Lecturer in Latin American Studies at the University of Oxford, where he also coordinates the Brazilian Studies Programme at the Latin American Centre. A former Brazilian diplomat, his research focuses on social movements, drug policy reform, and the politics of regulation. A frequent contributor to public-facing outlets, his op-eds and commentary have appeared in Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, BBC, Deutsche Welle and others. He has a PhD in politics from the University of Cambridge.
About King's Brazil Week
Hosted by the King's Brazil Institute, King’s Brazil Week is an annual celebration of all things Brazilian.
During Brazil Week 2025, we discuss the emergence of new institutional frameworks and leadership models. When traditional powers lean toward authoritarianism, can cities and the Global South take the lead in securing effective global governance?
Find out more about Brazil Week
At this event
Director, King's Brazil Institute
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