Source: Journal of Politics in Latin America | Published: 2026-06-27
Category: 정권·선거 변동 | Keywords: bolsonaro, brazil, electoral, far-right, politics
The resurgence of far-right political movements across the Americas and Europe has prompted urgent scholarly inquiry into whether these phenomena represent temporary electoral disruptions or more durable structural realignments in democratic polities. Brazil occupies a singular position in this debate. As the largest democracy in Latin America and one of the most consequential emerging economies in the Global South, the trajectory of Brazilian politics carries weight well beyond its borders — for multilateral institutions, for regional governance architectures, and for the broader question of whether liberal democratic norms retain their organizing force in an era of intensifying geopolitical contestation. A recent contribution to the Journal of Politics in Latin America takes up precisely this question, examining not merely the electoral arc of Jair Bolsonaro's movement but the deeper ideological and organizational structures that enabled it to endure — and arguably consolidate — even after his defeat in the 2022 presidential election. The article's central intervention is to reframe "Bolsonarismo" not as the personal vehicle of a populist leader, but as an alignment with its own institutional roots, social bases, and ideological coherence capable of persisting across electoral cycles.
The study's analytical framing reflects a growing sophistication in comparative politics scholarship about how far-right movements should be studied. Earlier academic treatments of Bolsonaro tended to situate him within the broader wave of right-wing populism that swept through Western democracies in the mid-2010s — drawing parallels to Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán, and Marine Le Pen — and interpreted his political project primarily through the lens of leadership charisma, anti-establishment messaging, and the mobilization of cultural grievances. While these elements were undeniably present, the article argues that focusing on electoral fortunes and the personal brand of the leader obscures the more consequential story of institutional consolidation. Bolsonarismo, on this reading, succeeded in embedding itself within critical sectors of Brazilian society — the evangelical Protestant community, agricultural agribusiness networks, sections of the military, and a significant urban lower-middle class — in ways that created lasting political capital not reducible to the figure of Bolsonaro himself. The movement's ability to sustain significant presence in the Brazilian Congress, state governorships, and municipal governments after 2022 is cited as primary evidence of this consolidation thesis.
This argument connects to wider debates in political science about the distinction between populist movements and far-right alignments. Populism, in most canonical treatments, is understood as a thin-centered ideology that can attach itself to left or right substantive programs and that tends to be highly personalistic and organizationally fragile. Far-right alignments, by contrast, possess a denser ideological core — typically organized around nationalism, religious conservatism, anti-egalitarianism, and suspicion of internationalist norms — and are capable of generating durable electoral coalitions that survive leadership transitions. The article's contribution is to empirically trace this transition in the Brazilian case, documenting how the 2018 election was not merely the victory of a maverick candidate but the crystallization of a long-simmering social and political tendency that had been organizing, often through evangelical networks and digital media ecosystems, throughout the PT (Workers' Party) governments of the 2000s and 2010s. The 2022 defeat, in this light, was a setback for the personal trajectory of Bolsonaro but not for the ideological project his movement represents.
For ODA practitioners, civil society researchers, and multilateral actors engaged with Brazil, these findings carry significant policy implications. The return of Lula da Silva to the presidency has been broadly welcomed in international development circles as a restoration of Brazilian engagement with multilateral climate commitments, social protection programs, and South-South cooperation frameworks. However, the structural consolidation of a far-right alignment in Brazilian society and institutions means that these policy reversals remain contested and potentially fragile. Civil society organizations operating in Brazil — many of which faced significant pressures, including funding cuts and rhetorical delegitimization, during the Bolsonaro years — cannot assume a straightforward restoration of the operational environment that existed prior to 2018. Understanding the social coalitions that sustain the far-right alignment, particularly the deep interpenetration of evangelical Protestantism and conservative political organizing, is essential for any realistic assessment of civil society's operating space in the medium term. International donors and development institutions that channel support through Brazilian civil society intermediaries must incorporate this political economy analysis into their program design and risk frameworks.
Looking forward, the article's findings invite a broader reflection on the limits of electoral-cycle analysis as a framework for understanding political change in emerging democracies. The standard narrative of democratic backsliding and recovery — in which a populist authoritarian wins power, damages institutions, and is then removed by voters who restore democratic normalcy — may be inadequate to capture what is actually occurring in Brazil and in analogous cases across the Americas and beyond. What the Brazilian case suggests instead is a model of competitive authoritarian entrenchment in which far-right movements use their periods in power to reconfigure the social and institutional terrain in ways that outlast their formal electoral tenure. For researchers working at the intersection of comparative democratization and political economy, this implies the need for longitudinal analytical frameworks that track organizational capacity, social coalition formation, and ideological diffusion rather than focusing narrowly on executive power and electoral outcomes. For practitioners, it underscores the importance of sustained investment in democratic institution-building and civil society resilience even — perhaps especially — in periods when formal democratic procedures appear to be functioning. Brazil's political trajectory will continue to serve as a critical test case for these theoretical and practical questions throughout the remainder of this decade.