Source: Journal of Politics in Latin America | Published: 2026-07-10
Category: 정권·선거 변동 | Keywords: bolsonaro, brazil, electoral, far-right, politics
The resurgence of far-right political movements across the democratic world has become one of the defining challenges of the contemporary era, and few cases illuminate this phenomenon more vividly than Brazil under Jair Bolsonaro. The article "Beyond Electoral Fortunes: The Consolidation of a Far-Right Alignment in Brazil," published in the Journal of Politics in Latin America, arrives at a particularly consequential moment — when analysts and policymakers alike are grappling with whether the wave of illiberal populism that crested in the 2010s has receded or merely found new channels through which to flow. Brazil, as the largest democracy in Latin America and a pivotal actor in global governance, development finance, and civil society multilateralism, offers a test case with implications that extend far beyond its borders. Understanding not simply how Bolsonarismo rose to power, but why it persists as a coherent ideological force despite electoral defeat, is essential for scholars of political economy, democratic resilience, and international development alike.
The central contribution of this article lies in its analytical reframing: rather than treating Bolsonaro's loss in the 2022 presidential election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as the endpoint of a political episode, the authors examine it as a transition point within a broader structural realignment. The study poses two core research questions about the mechanisms through which far-right ideology becomes institutionalized beyond the electoral fortunes of its figurehead. This is a theoretically significant move, because it challenges the personalist interpretation of Bolsonarismo — the view that the movement was essentially a vehicle for one charismatic leader's ambitions — and instead argues for understanding it as a durable alignment of social forces, institutional actors, and ideological networks. The distinction matters enormously. If the far-right alignment in Brazil were merely personalist in character, Lula's victory would have been sufficient to dissolve it. The evidence suggests otherwise: Bolsonaro's political base retained substantial congressional representation, maintained significant penetration of the security forces, and demonstrated organizational capacity through the camp protests of January 8, 2023, when supporters stormed the presidential palace, congress, and supreme court in an episode that drew immediate comparisons to the January 6, 2021 events in the United States.
This parallel to the United States is not incidental but reflects a broader transnational architecture of far-right political organization that this article implicitly engages. Across the global north and south alike, far-right movements have increasingly operated not as isolated national phenomena but as a loosely networked ideological bloc, sharing rhetorical repertoires, organizational strategies, and, in some cases, direct material and communicative support. In Latin America specifically, the consolidation of far-right alignments in Brazil resonates with analogous dynamics in El Salvador under Nayib Bukele, in Argentina under Javier Milei, and in the sustained influence of right-wing populist formations in Paraguay and Ecuador. What connects these cases is not merely a shared hostility to progressive social policy or redistributive economics, but a coherent critique of multilateral institutions, international civil society, and the liberal norms architecture that has underpinned the ODA system since the post-Cold War era. For development scholars, this is not peripheral: the Bolsonaro government's hostility toward international environmental partnerships, its suspicion of civil society organizations receiving foreign funding, and its antagonism toward multilateral human rights mechanisms all had direct material consequences for ODA flows and civil society operating space in Brazil.
The policy implications of this analysis are substantial and multidimensional. For donors and international development institutions operating in Brazil, the persistence of a far-right alignment — even under a left-leaning federal government — creates significant subnational and institutional complexity. Bolsonarista governors, mayors, and legislators retain control over considerable resources and regulatory authority, meaning that civil society organizations engaged in health, education, environmental, and gender-related programming cannot assume a uniformly enabling environment simply because the national executive has changed. Development programming that was designed around the assumption of a sympathetic federal government in Brasília must now grapple with a fragmented political landscape in which ideological opposition to internationally funded civil society work can be mobilized at multiple governance levels. Furthermore, the organizational infrastructure that the article identifies as central to the consolidation of far-right alignment — including evangelical religious networks, military and police associations, and digital communication ecosystems — constitutes a durable counterweight to progressive policy implementation that will outlast any single electoral cycle.
Looking forward, the analysis published in the Journal of Politics in Latin America points toward a research agenda and a set of practitioner concerns that will define the next decade of work on democratic governance, civil society, and development in Latin America. For researchers, the central challenge is developing comparative frameworks capable of distinguishing between far-right political movements that are primarily electoral vehicles and those that have achieved the kind of structural consolidation documented in the Brazilian case. The latter category is more resistant to the conventional tools of democratic governance promotion precisely because its roots lie in social networks, institutional penetration, and cultural production rather than in the vulnerability of a single leader's electoral standing. For practitioners in the ODA and civil society space, the implication is a renewed emphasis on the resilience and adaptive capacity of civil society organizations themselves — their ability to navigate hostile subnational environments, maintain operational independence from volatile donor-government relationships, and build constituencies that extend beyond the political coalitions of any given administration. Brazil under Lula is not a return to 2002 or even to 2010; it is a new and more contested terrain, in which the democratic gains of the past must be defended against a far-right alignment that has learned, from experience, how to survive beyond electoral defeat.