State and violence in rural areas of Mexico and Brazil

Abstract

There are two aims to this ar ticle: to show that up to now repression is a constant but not not inherent characteristic to the forms of government prevailing in Mexico and Brazil, and prove that the current motives for violence in both countries are more related to the privileges and interests of the dominant classes than to the formal differences or the type of colonization each of these countries experienced. To achieve these aims the author makes a superficial review of the more constant and general motives for which both countries have resor ted to violence in recent decades. The outline, with no historical pretension, includes the most frequent and recent trends for which both States have used violence in the rural sphere.