NEOLIBERAL RATIONALITY AND CHILDHOOD PROTECTION

Abstract

This research aims to analyze, from a legal-constitutional perspective, the possibility of reconciling neoliberal rationality with the Brazilian system of comprehensive protection for children and adolescents. Far from adopting an automatic critique of the minimal State, the study proposes a reinterpretation of this rationality, examining to what extent values such as autonomy, decentralization, and subsidiarity can strengthen the Doctrine of Comprehensive Protection established in the 1988 Federal Constitution and the Statute of the Child and Adolescent. Based on a literature review and a deductive approach, the study adopts as its theoretical framework The New Way of the World by Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval, critically reinterpreted, along with complementary references such as Gama. The analytical path is organized into three axes: normative foundations of comprehensive protection; neoliberal rationality and the principle of subsidiarity; progressive autonomy and youth protagonism as expressions of child and adolescent citizenship. Thus, the research starts from general normative and theoretical frameworks to analyze the specific legal consequences of neoliberal rationality in the constitutional system of comprehensive protection for children and adolescents. The conclusion is that neoliberal rationality, when legally regulated and subordinated to constitutional principles, can expand protection mechanisms, strengthen shared responsibility among the State, family, and civil society, and contribute to a plural and responsive model of child protection without compromising the core of fundamental rights.