Source: Journal of Politics in Latin America | Published: 2026-07-04
Category: 정권·선거 변동 | Keywords: bolsonaro, brazil, electoral, far-right, politics
The global resurgence of far-right political movements over the past decade has fundamentally altered the landscape in which international development practitioners, civil society organizations, and democratic institutions operate. From Hungary to India, from the United States to the Philippines, populist authoritarian formations have demonstrated a remarkable capacity not merely to win elections but to reshape the ideological terrain of their societies in ways that persist long after individual leaders depart from power. Brazil represents perhaps the most instructive case study in this regard: a country where the far-right Bolsonarismo project, despite its candidate's loss in the October 2022 presidential election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has continued to exercise profound influence over political discourse, institutional norms, and civil society dynamics. The article under examination in the Journal of Politics in Latin America addresses precisely this phenomenon, asking not only how Bolsonarismo rose to power but how and why it has consolidated as an enduring ideological alignment well beyond the electoral fortunes of its figurehead.
The central analytical contribution of this study lies in its challenge to electoralist frameworks that tend to reduce far-right movements to the personal charisma or political performance of individual leaders. By directing attention toward the consolidation of alignment — the structural embedding of far-right ideas, networks, and institutional actors across Brazilian society — the article makes a case for understanding Bolsonarismo as a durable political force rather than a momentary aberration produced by economic discontent, pandemic fatigue, or anti-PT sentiment alone. This distinction carries considerable weight. If the far right's foothold in Brazil were primarily a function of Bolsonaro's electoral appeal, one might expect his 2022 defeat to have substantially deflated the movement. The evidence suggests otherwise. Bolsonarista candidates continued to perform strongly in congressional, gubernatorial, and municipal contests. The ideological infrastructure — including evangelical networks, agribusiness associations, segments of the military officer corps, and a digitally mobilized base — remained intact and in many respects more organized than before. The article's framework thus helps explain why transitions of executive power do not necessarily translate into transitions of political power in any deeper sense.
Understanding this consolidation requires situating Bolsonarismo within the longer arc of Brazilian democratic development and within the global wave of right-wing populism that scholars have variously attributed to economic globalization's distributional consequences, cultural backlash against progressive norms, institutional distrust following corruption scandals, and the affordances of social media as a vehicle for affect-laden political mobilization. Brazil entered this conjuncture with specific vulnerabilities: a fragmented party system that historically privileged transactional coalition-building over programmatic coherence, deep regional and racial inequalities that created divergent political economies across the country's vast territory, and the aftermath of Operation Car Wash (Lava Jato), which eroded public confidence in establishment parties of both left and center-right. Into this space, Bolsonaro and his movement inserted an ideological package combining social conservatism, economic liberalism, nationalist militarism, and aggressive anti-institutionalism that drew selectively on global far-right currents while adapting them to distinctly Brazilian conditions. The article's focus on consolidation implies that these conditions produced not merely a governing coalition but something approaching a counter-hegemonic bloc with its own institutions, media ecosystem, and normative vocabulary.
For researchers and practitioners engaged in ODA, civil society strengthening, and democratic governance, the Brazilian case raises several analytically pressing questions. First, it illustrates the limits of programmatic interventions that treat democratic backsliding as a temporary deviation correctable through electoral assistance, civic education, or elite-level dialogue when the underlying conditions sustaining far-right mobilization — economic precarity, institutional distrust, identity grievances — remain unaddressed. Second, it highlights the ways in which civil society itself is not a unified pro-democratic force but an arena of contestation: the Bolsonarista movement was itself organized through civil society channels, including religious communities, professional associations, and digital platforms, complicating narratives that treat civil society as inherently aligned with liberal democratic values. Third, it raises questions about the relationship between international normative frameworks — on human rights, environmental governance, and gender equality — and the domestic political legitimacy of governments that challenge those frameworks. Bolsonaro's confrontational posture toward international institutions and multilateral norms was not a liability with his base; in many respects, it was a constitutive feature of his political identity and a source of appeal.
Looking forward, the consolidation of far-right alignment in Brazil will shape the political operating environment for years to come, regardless of which party holds the presidency. For the Lula government, this means governing in a context where ideological opposition is structurally embedded in Congress, the judiciary, state governments, and significant portions of the security forces — a set of constraints that will bear heavily on the ambition and pace of social and environmental policy reform. For the international community, it signals the need for engagement strategies that go beyond transactional partnerships with executive governments and attend to the deeper societal and institutional dynamics that determine whether democratic norms can be sustained over time. For scholars, the Brazilian case offers a theoretically rich opportunity to refine our understanding of how political alignments crystallize, how they survive electoral reversal, and what conditions might eventually erode or transform them. The article's framing — "beyond electoral fortunes" — captures something essential: that the study of contemporary far-right politics demands analytical tools calibrated not to the short rhythms of election cycles but to the longer, slower processes through which political identities, institutional configurations, and cultural common sense are made and remade.