BIOPOLITICAL WAR AND THE CRISIS OF DEMOCRATIC REPRESENTATION IN THE 2014 WORLD CUP

Abstract

The organizers of the 2014 World Cup promised that it would generate benefits for Brazil. However, this promise was met with incredulity and protests on the part of Brazilian society. Starting from an understanding of the hardening of these different positions as a conflict of interests around the practices and systems of control of life, this article analyzes the biopolitical war that ensued throughout the organization of the Brazil World Cup. Based on the political theory of Hardt and Negri and the method of Foucault’s Discourse Analysis, this study analyzes a set of 779 documents. These reveal, on the one hand, an attempt by the government to control public opinion. On the other hand, the article shows the development of a resistance of society to this government action. This dynamic reveals how the 2014 World Cup has played a role in Brazil’s current democratic crisis.