Source: Journal of Politics in Latin America | Published: 2026-06-15
Category: 정권·선거 변동 | Keywords: bolsonaro, brazil, electoral, far-right, politics
The resurgence of far-right political movements across the globe has become one of the defining phenomena of the early twenty-first century, challenging the post-Cold War liberal consensus and forcing scholars of comparative politics to revisit foundational assumptions about democratic consolidation, ideological realignment, and the durability of populist projects. Latin America, a region that spent much of the latter twentieth century recovering from authoritarian rule and constructing fragile but functional democratic institutions, has not been immune to this trend. Brazil, the region's largest democracy and most populous nation, has become a particularly revealing case study. The presidency of Jair Bolsonaro from 2019 to 2022 represented not merely a rightward shift in government but the crystallization of a durable social and ideological movement whose reach extends well beyond a single electoral cycle. The article published in the Journal of Politics in Latin America takes seriously the question of whether Bolsonarismo constitutes a transient phenomenon tied to one man's fortunes or something structurally more consequential — and the implications of that distinction matter enormously for scholars, policymakers, and civil society actors engaged with Brazilian democracy.
The central analytical contribution of the article lies in its insistence that electoral outcomes are insufficient as explanatory frameworks for understanding the far right in Brazil. Bolsonaro's defeat in the October 2022 presidential election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, while symbolically significant, did not dismantle the political infrastructure, social networks, or ideological commitments that had coalesced around his project over the preceding years. The study traces the emergence of this alignment through its organizational capacity — encompassing evangelical Christian networks, segments of the military and security forces, agribusiness interests, and a highly mobilized digital base — and argues that these constituencies have developed a degree of political coherence that transcends any single electoral contest. This is a critical intervention. Much comparative political science has examined populist movements through the lens of their charismatic leaders, treating the movement as derivative of the personality at its center. The Brazilian case, as the article frames it, demands a more structural approach, one attentive to how ideological projects become institutionalized even when their figureheads lose formal power.
This analysis connects to broader theoretical debates about democratic backsliding and authoritarian resurgence that have animated scholarship on global governance and civil society over the past decade. The work of scholars such as Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way on competitive authoritarianism, or Anna Grzymala-Busse on the politics of institutional erosion, provides useful comparative context. What is distinctive about the Brazilian trajectory is the degree to which the far-right alignment has engaged in what might be termed dual-track politics — simultaneously contesting elections through conventional means while cultivating extra-institutional pressure networks that generate instability and test constitutional guardrails. The January 8, 2023 attacks on the presidential palace, the National Congress, and the Supreme Court, carried out by Bolsonaro supporters in the weeks after Lula's inauguration, represent the most visible expression of this dual-track logic. They also underscore the article's core point: that the consolidation of the far-right alignment in Brazil is not merely a story of votes cast but of organizational capacity, social mobilization, and the embedding of anti-pluralist norms in significant sections of the electorate.
For development practitioners, ODA researchers, and civil society scholars, these findings carry concrete policy implications. Brazil under Lula has returned to active multilateral engagement, rejoining the Paris Agreement and positioning itself as a leader on climate diplomacy ahead of COP30 in Belém in 2025. International partners and donor institutions are understandably eager to re-engage with a Brazilian government more receptive to environmental governance, social protection, and democratic norms. Yet the structural persistence of the Bolsonarist alignment introduces deep uncertainty into the medium-term policy environment. Civil society organizations operating in areas such as land rights, indigenous peoples' protection, LGBTQ+ advocacy, and press freedom cannot treat the current political opening as permanent or self-reinforcing. The article implicitly reminds external partners that the consolidation of far-right alignment in Brazil represents a genuine veto player capacity — not just in electoral terms but in terms of the social and political pressures that can constrain progressive policy implementation even when left-leaning governments hold executive power. Effective ODA strategy and civil society support in such contexts must therefore invest in institutional resilience, legal capacity, and coalition-building that is robust enough to survive political reversals.
Looking forward, the Brazilian case offers a sobering but instructive example for researchers and practitioners engaged with democratic governance across the Global South. Far-right movements that have developed genuine organizational infrastructure, multi-sector coalitions, and ideologically coherent narratives cannot simply be waited out or defeated through a single electoral cycle. The question the article ultimately poses — whether Bolsonarismo has crossed the threshold from movement to durable alignment — carries practical urgency. If the answer is yes, then Brazil's political landscape will be shaped for a generation by contestation between two deeply entrenched and incompatible visions of national identity, state power, and social order. Scholars of Latin American politics, civil society researchers, and international development institutions would do well to center this structural reality in their analytical frameworks, rather than allowing optimism about electoral outcomes to obscure the harder, more durable work of democratic consolidation that remains unfinished.