Abstract
The article historically reconstructs the debates of the approval and implementation of the Brazilian National Security Law (Law n. 7.170/83), from 1978 to 1987. Drawing on a definition of authoritarian constitutionalism, it argues that the original meaning of the NSL relied on the arrangement of powers and competencies of the military regime. In the democratization process, the law lost the contents that were linked to the national security doctrine but kept the institutional arrangement that once gave it meaning. Through its use in the Supreme Court, the law became a signal and a tool of a controlled democracy.
Keywords:
Constitutional history; National Security Law; Authoritarian constitutionalism