Authoritarian legacies and far-right normalization in the Andes

Andean countries have experienced different levels of far-right normalization. This process very strong in the Peruvian case, while in the Chilean and Colombian cases this progress is rather partial. In the Chilean case, the far right has been particularly successful in the partisan arena, forming mainstream electoral coalitions and inserting itself into political competition. In the Colombian case, on the contrary, the progress is fundamentally in the arena of grassroots politics, so its influence has been rather discursive as some parties or leaders seek to mobilize them as an electorate including their issues. In the cases of Bolivia and Ecuador there are far-right platforms, yet these are still marginal actors in politics, while moderate right-wing platforms have not yet included them in their coalitions or adopted their discourses. Why some Andean countries are more likely to normalize far-right platforms in the political arena? I argue that the experience of a successful authoritarian restorative regime after periods of strong political violence have an effect in the normalization of the far right. Those countries that experienced this sequence of periods are more likely to undergo the phenomenon since authoritarian legacies explain the conditions that make it possible for far-right platforms to gain both discursive and coalitional influence in the political arena. While almost all these countries have had authoritarian periods or governments with hegemonic tendencies that have used the restorative discourse as a legitimation of their power, the intensity of such experiences also varies depending on the experience of political violence or previous subversive period. The logic is simple: where the antecedents were notably more devastating, the restorative governments had more elements to justify their intervention and the legitimacy of their government, while these discourses left deeper marks. Consistent with the proposed theory, Peru, the case that has advanced the most in the normalization of the far right, combines a period of intense political violence with a restorative government. Meanwhile, the cases of Colombia and Chile, where the advance of this phenomenon has been moderate, correspond to only one of the characteristics: Colombia experienced a process of intense violence but with a failed government with authoritarian tendencies, while Chile experienced a very moderate process of violence while having a very strong restorative authoritarian government. Bolivia and Ecuador, where both conditions were weak have not yet experienced the same levels of far-right normalization.