A Review of Right-Wing Populism in Latin America and Beyond

Right-Wing Populism in Latin America and Beyond edited by Anthony W. Pereira (Routledge Press, 2023, 318 pages)

Scholars of populism in Latin America for much of the period of “the pink tide” in the region during the 2000s and early 2010s associated populism with governments of the left. Presidents such as Hugo Chávez (Venezuela), Evo Morales (Bolivia), Néstor and Cristina Kirchner (Argentina) and Rafael Correa (Ecuador) were prime examples of presidents who employed populist tactics and performances in their governing. Some scholars of populism contrasted these patterns with those in Europe, where populist parties and leaders tended to be associated with the nationalist right (pace PODEMOS in Spain and Syriza in Greece). With the election of Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil), Nayib Bukele (El Salvador), and Javier Milei (Argentina), among others, Anthony Pereira’s volume on right-wing populism in Latin America and in comparative perspective could not be timelier.  

Pereira’s volume is motivated by several questions, but primary among these is: what is distinctive about the catalysts and trajectories of right-wing populism in Latin America? Taking full opportunity of cross-regional, comparative analysis, Pereira and his contributors start by highlighting what is common across cases of right-wing populism that differentiate the phenomenon from the better-understood left-wing variety. Right-wing populists share with their left-wing counterparts the claim that they channel “the people” and stand against “establishment elites” who do not. Like left-wing populists, rightist populists tend to be outsiders or mavericks who have not been part of the traditional political class. However, right-wing populists differentiate from leftists in key ways. They cast traditional elites as corrupt and they show little tolerance for diversity. They tap into the public’s fears about crime and economic uncertainty, especially among the aspirational lower-middle and working classes whose incomes declined post-commodity boom. They adopt tough-on-crime stances to exploit growing divides over security, especially along class and racial lines. Populists amplify their message as public services wane and more middle-class individuals face poverty. They blame self-serving traditional pols who they accuse of coddling the “indolent” poor and “delinquents.” Unlike their U.S. and European peers who favor protectionism, Latin American right-wing populists maintain neoliberal stances, judging markets to be more accountable than corrupt officialdom.  

These aspects of right-wing populism are demonstrated effectively in a set of chapters that delve into particular case studies of Latin American examples such as Bolsonaro’s Brazil, which receives the most attention, particularly in the final section of the book that focuses on the COVID-19 crisis and Bolsonaro’s mishandling of the country’s response. The volume begins with theoretical considerations about the study of populism and its role in threatening democracy (Part I). What is most notable in this section is the sense that right-wing populists can threaten democracy if they embrace “anti-institutional” preferences, as Anthony Spanakos of Montclair State University notes. This evokes images of the violent, post-election attacks by Bolsonaro’s supporters on federal government buildings in Brasília on January 8, 2023. However, the authors do not make the claim or present evidence that right-wing populism exerts a greater or unique threat to democracy than the left-wing variety. And, as social anthropologist Katerina Hatzikidi argues in her chapter, populism by itself is insufficient to account for democratic backsliding. The key question that is beyond the scope of analysis is what must accompany populism to finish the job. 

A notable aspect of the volume is its focus on political-economic catalysts for right-wing populism (Part II). The arguments vary from the useful primer on associations between globalization and different varieties of populism discussed in Harvard Business School Assistant Professor of Business Administration Paula Rettl’s chapter to University of California, Riverside, political scientist Diogo Ferrari’s chapter that extends on varieties of approaches to populism before considering economic causes of right-wing populism, mostly in advanced capitalist countries. Political scientist Cecilia Lero’s chapter re-grounds this section in the developing world with a paired comparison of Rodrigo Duterte’s the Philippines and Bolsonaro’s Brazil. Her highly nuanced argument offers insights into the associations between economic growth and the rise of right-wing populism. In what easily parallels’ Samuel Huntington’s classic theory of economic growth undermining political order, Lero shows that Brazil’s “new middle class,” which rose during the commodity boom, gained international exposure. Their travels to more developed capitalist countries heightened their awareness of Brazil’s institutional flaws and corruption. This exposure sparked cultural shock that led to their support for anti-establishment figures such as Bolsonaro. There was a parallel in the preferences of these voters regarding security. The new middle class resents policies that benefit the rich as well as the poor and that ignore the socioeconomic and physical security of their own class. These resentments were easily channeled by Duterte and Bolsonaro in ways that supported their electoral success.  

Several of the chapters underscore that right-wing populism resonates especially strongly with particular groups. Lero’s chapter on the resentments of new middle-class actors is one example. In Parts III and IV, the contributors probe further, laying out the effects on institutions and they do a deeper dive into the COVID-19 context in Bolsonaro’s Brazil. For example, Sérgio de Lima’s chapter analyzes Bolsonaro’s public security policy and how it resonated with active-duty police officers and encouraged public security campaigns by some of these to run for elected office. Brazilian political scientist Vinicius De Souza Sturari and sociologist Rodrigo Moretti-Pires, in their chapter, underscore how right-wing populists used disinformation to appeal to their supporters based on nationalism, misogyny, racism and anti-LGBTQ+ messaging. Where identitarian bonds were insufficient, material distribution reinforced support for figures such as Bolsonaro. For example, Brazilian political sociologist Leonardo Avritzer and political scientist Lucio Rennó demonstrate that support for Bolsonaro’s government during the first year of the pandemic was driven by the distribution of emergency assistance (auxilio emergencial).  

The case of Bolsonarismo also demonstrates the contradictions of polarizing populism. Bolsonaro’s denialism of science and refusal to use state capacity effectively proved disastrous. Whether it was his unfounded claims about hydroxychloroquine (see the chapter by Brazilian political scientists Guilherme Casarões and Pedro Magalhães) or, as Avritzer and Rennó emphasize, his sheer radicalism that inspired his base, the cost was the alienation of other voters. As evidence, the authors point to the strong correlation between rising deaths due to COVID-19 and Bolsonaro’s declining popularity in the 2022 presidential election year. If Bolsonaro demonstrated that he could push the envelope of polarizing populism, he also showed that the model suffers from a point of diminishing returns. His close defeat by Lula da Silva was as much a product of Bolsonaro’s doubling down on radicalism as it was the Workers Party’s ability to retain its constituencies across the country.  

One of the volume’s most useful contributions is its effort to correct the view that left-wing populism in Latin America has threatened democracy more than right-wing variants. But one may ask how much of a threat right-wing populism poses and whether some of that threat is unique to this variant of populism. One possibility is suggested by a plurality of the chapters that focus on the resentments motivating populists and their bases. Socio-economic judgments and security concerns seem to be the primary drivers of this discontent. But exploring these notions would require a volume far more focused on the comparative experiences across Latin America and less a volume that invests space in very different cases such as India, which encompasses religious, ethnic and other ascriptive differences of a depth and intensity that are simply not present to the same extent in the region.  

Such a volume, elaborating on the insights produced in the present text, would have to focus far more deeply on socio-economic resentments, with their racial and heteronormative correlates in some countries, such as Brazil. Security issues appear across the chapters as a salient arena in which to invest far more attention. Cases that are not in the book, such as Nayib Bukele’s El Salvador, would add comparative breadth and depth to the project. To be sure, good, useful books, such as this one, always inspire a broadening of empirical and analytical approaches. In this regard, Pereira’s volume whets the appetite for more study of right-wing populism and what makes it particularly important now in Latin America.  

Broadening the comparative scope of this research program is necessary to be able to answer the larger question of what role populism plays in the larger process of understanding Latin American democracies under siege. At a minimum, populism is one aspect of a larger narrative in the region that includes other threats to democracy, such as polarization, executive aggrandizement, electoral volatility, and widespread discontent with democracy. In that regard, Anthony Pereira’s volume reminds us that there is much more comparative work to do to understand the full scope of the challenges to democracy in Latin America presently and for years to come.  

Alfred P. Montero is Frank B. Kellogg Professor of political science at Carleton College, specializing in comparative politics. He is the senior editor of Latin American Politics and Society, a leading refereed journal in the field of Latin American politics. Montero’s current research is on trajectories of polarization in Brazil and the Southern Cone of South America.