Beyond the Far Right’s Support Base: Mapping Its Opponents in Latin America

As in other parts of the world, the far right has been growing electorally in Latin America. However, existing empirical studies have generally focused on the support bases of the far right, leaving underexplored the question of who opposes the far right and, more importantly, how these broad segments of the electorate resemble and differ from one another. In this contribution, we address this gap by drawing on public opinion survey data from Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. An analysis of these three countries shows that opposition to the far right encompasses highly diverse groups of the electorate, including educated urban sectors, Catholic middle classes, and popular groups supportive of redistribution. To better capture this diversity, we employ Latent Class Analysis (LCA) to identify distinct segments of far-right rejection based on shared attitudinal and socio-demographic profiles. After identifying and describing these distinct oppositional groups, we then conduct inferential statistical analyses to examine which factors explain membership in one segment rather than another, drawing on cultural and moral attitudes, political orientations, and policy preferences. The evidence indicates that those unwilling to support the far right do not constitute an organized political coalition. Instead, this is a heterogeneous universe that manifests itself differently depending on the dominant national lines of conflict. Consequently, this contribution reflects on the extent to which it is possible to advance toward the construction of broad coalitions among those who are unwilling to support the far right.