The Politics of Far Right in Brazil: institutional, behavioural and economic aspects

Abstract

Brazilian politics has become, in a relatively short time, from a successful example of a developing country in which democratic stability has been combined with economic growth and poverty reduction to a central laboratory of the extreme right with an authoritarian tone. After decades of party competition of a centripetal nature, in which the best strategy for the major parties was to reach the median voter in the electorate, hence, to moderate attitudes, platforms as well as their behavior, radicalization, and political intolerance began to give the tonic of politics, especially among conservatives, on the right of the ideological spectrum. This process started with the unprecedented polarization in the presidential elections of 2014 and had a crucial moment during the controversial impeachment of Dilma Rousseff in 2016, culminating with the victory of the ultra-rightist Jair Bolsonaro in 2018. The explanations found in the literature for this strong inflection towards the right have emphasized elements such as corruption scandals involving traditional parties, the institutional and ideologically biased role of the judiciary in the political order, the reaction of the middle classes who see their status threatened in the face of the redistributive policies implemented by the center-left Workers' Party governments from 2003 to 2016; finally, the emergence of affection as the primary driver of political behavior, triggered by the massive use of social networks. Considering these explanations as a first approximation of the phenomenon, the panel's goal is to present and discuss a varied set of analyses, each with the ambition to deepen our comprehension of the emergence of the far right in Brazil through the election and presidency of Jair Bolsonaro. Through various research designs and methodological approaches, the panel will touch on different aspects of the rise of the authoritarian right in Brazil. The papers of the panel will address the following topics: the context of increased polarization as a prelude to the rise of the right, the institutional role of the judiciary as a semi-partisan actor, the political economy of the conservative vote, and, finally, the campaign and mobilization strategies of the extreme right and their effects on electoral behavior.

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