Abstract:
The article presents a comparative content analysis of political discourses related to the country´s public security crisis disseminated by the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God and by Jair Bolsonaro during the 2018 Brazilian presidential elections. We analyzed articles published by the Folha Universal newspaper and by the church’s official website; as well as of publications by Bolsonaro in his official Facebook page during the electoral campaign. William Gamson´s theory of interpretative packages guided our analysis of these materials. The results demonstrate that the two narratives diverge in several ways. While Bolsonaro emphasized an idealized conception of punishment, the church mobilized its Christian beliefs to defend a narrative that proposed combining punishment with the reintegration of criminals into society, what we call resocializing punishment.
Keywords:
The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God; Jair Bolsonaro; Punishment; Brazilian Elections; NeoPentecostalism