Still the exception and not the rule:
The populist radical right in Latin America
Keywords:
radical right, populism, Latin America, material values, negative identitiesAbstract
Undoubtedly, populist radical right parties (rpps) represent the largest family of populist parties. However, in the 18 countries that make up the South American subcontinent, only two leaders seem to fully embody this ideology: Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and José Antonio Kast in Chile. The aim of this article is to examine the reasons behind the scarce proliferation of PRRs in Latin America. In Western Europe the emergence of these parties is related to a sort of silent counter-revolution (Inglehart 1971; Ignazi 1992) in opposition to post-material values on which many traditional parties have converged in past decades. In contrast, in Latin America material values are still of vital importance due to the high levels of inequality in the region. Moreover, the article demonstrates that the simultaneous occurrence of three factors that combine the European experience and characteristics of the continent was the only reason one radical right-wing populist leader has been able to successfully rise to power in Latin America until today. First, the existence of a discourse that politicizes issues such as security and traditional values. Second, the nativist discourse, which unlike most PRR parties in Western Europe and the US —where the excluded are immigrants— is characterized by the fact that discrimination is mostly against native people. Finally, the third characteristic is the reliance on a negative identity against the left.
Downloads
References
AKKERMAN, T. (2005). Anti-immigration parties and the defence of liberal values: The exceptional case of the List Pim Fortuyn. Journal of Political Ideologies, 10(3), 337-354.
ASLANIDIS, P. (2016). Is Populism an Ideology? A Refutation and a New Perspective. Political Studies 64(1_suppl), 88-104. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9248.12224
BETZ, H. G. (2003). Xenophobia, identity politics and exclusionary populism in Western Europe. Socialist Register, 39.
BORNSCHIER, S. (2010). Cleavage Politics and the Populist Right: The New Cultural Conflict in Western Europe. Philadelphia, EE. UU.: Temple University Press.
CABEZAS, J. M., P. NAVIA. (2005). Efecto del sistema binominal en el número de candidatos y de partidos en elecciones legislativas en Chile, 1989-2001. Política. Revista de Ciencia Política, 45, 29-51.
CAIANI, M., D. DELLA PORTA. (2010). Extreme Right and Populism: A Frame Analysis of Extreme Right Wing Discourses in Italy and Germany. IHS Political Science Series n.º 121, July 2010.
CAREY, J. M. (2006). Las virtudes del sistema binominal. Revista de Ciencia Política (Santiago), 26(1), 226-235.
CRUZ, F., C. VARETTO. (2019). Crónica de un cambio anunciado. Las elecciones de 2017 en Chile frente al cambio de sistema electoral. Estudios Políticos, 54, 233-258.
GARAY, C. (2016). Social Policy Expansion in Latin America. New York, EE.UU.: Cambridge University Press.
DE LANGE, S. L. (2007). A New Winning Formula: The Programmatic Appeal of the Radical Right. Party Politics, 13(4), 411-435.
GIBSON, E. L. (1996). Class and Conservative Parties: Argentina in Comparative Perspective. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
HAWKINS, K. A., C. ROVIRA KALTWASSER, R. CARLIN, y L. LITTVAY. (2019). The ideational approach. Concept, Theory, and Analysis. Reino Unido: Routledge.
HUNTER, W., T. J, POWER. (2019). Bolsonaro and Brazil's illiberal backlash. Journal of Democracy, 30(1), 68-82.
IGNAZI, P. (1992). The Silent Counter-Revolution: Hypotheses on the Emergence of Extreme Right-Wing Parties in Europe. European Journal of Political Research, 22(1), 3-34.
INGLEHART, R. (1971). The silent revolution in Europe: Intergenerational change in post-industrial societies. The American political science review, 65(4), 991-1017.
KAST, J. A. (2017). Para volver a creer. Disponible en <https://www.servel.cl/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Programa_Jose_Antonio_Kast_Rist.pdf>.
KATZ, R. S., P. MAIR. (1995). Changing models of party organization and party democracy: the emergence of the cartel party. Party politics, 1(1), 5-28.
KATZ, R. S., P. MAIR, (2009). The cartel party thesis: A restatement. Perspectives on politics, 7(4), 753-766.
KITSCHELT, H., J. MCGANN. (1995). The Radical Right in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis. Ann Arbor, EE.UU.: University of Michigan Press.
KRIESI, H., E. GRANDE, R. LACHAT, M. DOLEZAL, S. BORNSCHIER, T. FREY, (2006). Globalization and the transformation of the national political space: Six European countries compared. European Journal of Political Research, 45(6), 921-956.
LANCASTER, C. M. (2020). Value Shift: Immigration Attitudes and the Sociocultural Divide. British Journal of Political Science, 1-20. Cambridge University Press.
LE TORNEAU, F. M. (2019). O governo Bolsonaro contra os Povos Indígenas: as garantias constitucionais postas à prova. Confins. Revue franco-brésilienne de géographie/Revista franco-brasilera de geografia, doi: https://doi.org/10.4000/confins.22413
LEVITSKY, S., K. M. ROBERTS (2011). The Resurgence of the Latin American Left. Baltimore, EE. UU.: Johns Hopkins University Press.
LUNA, J. P., C. ROVIRA KALTWASSER. (2014). The Resilience of the Latin American Right. Baltimore, EE. UU.: Johns Hopkins University Press.
MADARIAGA, A., C. ROVIRA KALTWASSER. (2020). Right-wing Moderation, Left-wing Inertia and Political Cartelisation in Post-Transition Chile. Journal of Latin American Studies, 52(2), 343-371.
MELÉNDEZ, C. (2019). El mal menor: vínculos políticos en el Perú posterior al colapso del sistema de partidos. Lima, Perú: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.
MORGAN, J. (2011). Bankrupt Representation and Party System Collapse. Pensilvania, EE. UU.: University Park: Penn State Press.
MUDDE, C. (2004). The populist zeitgeist. Government and opposition, 39(4), 541-563.
MUDDE, C. (2007). Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe. Cambridge, Reino Unido: Cambridge University Press.
MUDDE, C. (2016). The Populist Radical Right: A Reader. Londres, Reino Unido: Routledge.
MUDDE, C. (2019). The far right today. Cambridge, Reino Unido: Polity Press.
MUDDE, C., C. ROVIRA KALTWASSER. (2017). Populism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, Reino Unido: Oxford University Press.
NICHOLLS, L., F. CUESTAS. (2018). Penalización del aborto: violencia política y abusos de la memoria en Chile. Saúde e Sociedade, 27, 367-380.
NOHLEN, D. (2006). La reforma del sistema binominal desde una perspectiva comparada. Revista de Ciencia Política (Santiago), 26(1), 191-202.
PANIZZA, F. (2005). Populism and the Mirror of Democracy. Londres, Reino Unido: Verso.
PAZ NÚÑEZ, M. (31 de mayo de 2016). José Antonio Kast renuncia a la UDI. La tercera. Recuperado de <https://www.latercera.com/noticia/jose-antonio-kast-renuncia-a-la-udi/>.
PERÉZ BENTANCUR, V., R. PIÑEIRO RODRÍGUEZ, F. ROSENBLATT. (2019). How Party Activism Survives: Uruguay's Frente Amplio. Cambridge, Reino Unido: Cambridge University Press.
PIMENTEL, V. S. (2018). Elecciones presidenciales en Chile 2017. Bordes, 7, 47-53.
RAMA, J., L. ZANOTTI, S. TURNBULL-DUGARTE, A. SANTANA (2021). VOX: The rise of the Spanish Populist Radical Right. Londres, Reino Unido: Routledge.
RENNÓ, L. (2020). The Bolsonaro Voter: Issue Positions and Vote Choice in the 2018 Brazilian Presidential Elections. Latin American Politics and Society, 62(3), 1-23.
ROBERTS, K. M. (2014). Changing Course in Latin America. Cambridge; Reino Unido: Cambridge University Press.
ROBERTS, K. M. (2019). Bipolar Disorders: Varieties of Capitalism and Populist Out-flanking on the Left and Right. Polity, 51(4), 641-653.
ROVIRA KALTWASSER, C. (2020). El error de diagnóstico de la derecha chilena y la encrucijada actual. Estudios Públicos, 158(2020), 31-59. doi: https://doi.org/10.38178/07161115/2020.002
ROVIRA KALTWASSER, C. (2014). Latin American Populism: Some Conceptual and Normative Lessons.” Constellations 21(4), 494–504.
SAMUELS, D. J., C. ZUCCO. (2018). Partisans, antipartisans, and nonpartisans: voting behavior in Brazil. Cambridge Reino Unido: Cambridge University Press.
SANTOS, F., T. TANSCHEIT, (2019). Quando velhos atores saem de cena: a ascensão da nova direita política no Brasil. Colômbia Internacional, (99), 151-186. doi: https://doi.org/10.7440/colombiaint99.2019.06
STAVRAKAKIS, Y. (2014). The return of “the people”: Populism and anti-populism in the shadow of the European crisis. Constellations, 21(4), 505-517.
STAVRAKAKIS, Y., G. KATSAMBEKIS. (2018). The Populism/Anti-Populism Frontier and Its Mediation in Crisis-Ridden Greece: From Discursive Divide to Emerging Cleavage? European Political Science, 18(1), 37-52.
TIRONI, E., F. AGÜERO, F. (1999). ¿Sobrevivirá el nuevo paisaje político chileno? Estudios Públicos, 74(Otoño), 151-168.
WEYLAND, K., R. L. MADRID, W. HUNTER. (2010). Leftist Governments in Latin America: Successes and Shortcomings. New York, EE UU: Cambridge University Press.
ZANOTTI, L. (2019). Populist polarization in Italian politics, 1994-2016: an assessment from a Latin American analytical perspective. (Tesis doctoral). Recuperado de <https://scholarlypublications.universiteitleiden.nl/handle/1887/78561>.
ZANOTTI, L., J. RAMA. (2020). Issue polarization, vote for fringe political options and attitudes towards democracy: the case of the 2017 elections in Chile. Artículo presentado al congreso WAPOR, octubre 2020.
ZANOTTI, L., J. RAMA, T. TANSCHEIT. (2021). Assessing the fourth wave of the populist radical right: Jair Bolsonaro’s voters in comparative perspective. Doi: https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/qxyp4
ZASLOVE, A. (2004). Closing the door? The ideology and impact of radical right populism on immigration policy in Austria and Italy. Journal of Political ideologies, 9(1), 99-118.
ZASLOVE, A. (2008). Exclusion, community, and a populist political economy: The radical right as an anti-globalization movement. Comparative European Politics, 6(2), 169-189.
ZIBLATT, D. (2017). Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy. New York, EE UU.: Cambridge University Press.
