Violent Mandates: Presidential Power, Institutional Failure, and the Rise of Police Killings in Brazil and the Philippines

The report examines the role of control institutions in the rise in police killings in Brazil and the Philippines from 2016 to 2022. It identifies how radical presidents were able to emasculate democratic institutions tasked with upholding due procedure and rule of law, as well as controlling the executive, from internal police oversight to the judiciary and the legislative. It argues that controls fail as long as those institutions are not staffed by individuals who are willing to resist in crisis situations in order to uphold the normative and legal foundations of the demo­cratic order and thereby safeguard democratic resilience.