Recasting of the Latin American Right: Dr André Borges on polarisation, disparity and emerging trends in Brazil

Written by Marjorie Osagie & edited by Tanvi Jhunjhunwala

Dec 23, 2024

Dr André Borges is an associate professor of political science at the University of Brasília. Before this role, Borges was a visiting scholar at CILAS (Centre for Iberian and Latin American Studies at the University of California). His research focuses on executives and coalition politics, elections, parties, and party systems in presidential and/or federal settings, with his primary expertise in South America and particularly Brazil. His latest publications include ‘Recasting of the Latin American Right: Polarization and Conservative Reactions’ with Ryan Lloyd and Gabriel Vommaro (2024), which this interview explores.

Why did you enter academia?

One of the things that motivated me to go into academia was the opportunity to be a research assistant when I was an undergraduate student. There was a project on budget amendments in Brazil that I really enjoyed. Being a research assistant, I then met some Masters and PhD students, and then I had the opportunity to be an academic. One of the things that I like is the freedom, the fact that you have control over your time. You can use your creativity, which is not often possible in other jobs.

I had some doubts even after I finished my PhD, a major reason being the difficulty of finding a good position in Brazil. As I was funded by the Brazilian government, staying in the UK or trying to find a position in the United States or elsewhere was never an option because I had to go back and stay for at least four years. That was sort of the contract – since the government is funding you, you’re expected to go back. However, I think I was lucky because a few years after I finished my PhD there was a very substantial expansion of public universities during the first Lula government, and that was how I got my position here at the University of Brasília. I can say I’m happy. I mean, there are many problems, but I know that elsewhere there are very serious problems and limitations as well. That’s a short summary of why I became an academic.

Why did you decide to focus your research on political polarisation, particularly in Latin America?

This shift is recent for me, because my previous research has been on political institutions, coalition presidentialism, elections, and presidential coattails. So, this shift to the study of polarisation and the rise of far-right parties and movements is recent, and driven by the fact that we had a far-right president in Brazil. One of the things that perhaps motivated me to study these issues is the fact that, for many of us political scientists, it was a surprise. We did not expect Bolsonaro to win the election in 2018. I was surprised, and then I realised that, well, if this happened and we could not foresee it, then maybe there is something we are leaving aside. We need to study these issues and try to understand what is going on in terms of political attitudes and preferences, as well as political elites.

When we look at neighbouring countries like Argentina and Uruguay, we can see very similar trends of societies becoming more polarised. You are seeing the emergence of far-right parties and leaders, and all this is very new in Latin America. It is different from Europe because in countries like France, you have far-right parties that have existed for 30 or 40 years, so it is not a novelty.

But here, this is something very new, and that we haven’t seen before. So yes, I think that this has to do with my interest in Brazilian politics and in Latin American politics more broadly.

In the overview of your new book, ‘The Recasting of the Latin American Right,’ you suggest that the contemporary right in Latin America is not so much a reaction to the left wing, but rather just a reorganisation of pre-existing movements. Could you elaborate on what sets this current wave of conservatism apart from changes that we have seen in the past?

One of the major findings of this edited volume that I organised with Ryan Lloyd and Gabriel Vommaro is that we are seeing the reorganisation of the Latin American political right. This is very different from other waves of right-wing populism or right-wing radicalisation, because now, new parties and leaders are emphasising cultural issues as opposed to economic issues. Throughout the book, we present some case studies and some contemporary evidence that clearly shows that right-wing parties that were created after the turn of the century, at least since the early 2000s, are very different from parties that were created in previous years in the sense that these new right-wing parties are more conservative on average and less secular. The articulation between right-wing parties and conservative religious movements especially deals with a connection to evangelical churches. Furthermore, we now see new right-wing parties that have a weak organisational structure, and so these are not well-developed robust party organisations, but at the same time, in some cases, these new right-wing leaders have been able to create party brands and go on to cultivate a partisan base. So these parties are weak in terms of organisation, but strong in terms of values and their programmatic consistency.

Many of these parties have roots in society. People identify with disparity, sometimes not with the party. A substantial proportion of the population also identifies with former President Bolsonaro, about twenty-twenty five percent, in fact. What is even more impressive is the fact that in Brazil, parties are notoriously weak. I have some recent survey evidence showing that around ten percent of voters identify with the Liberal Party, which is Bolsonaro’s party.. At least in the case of Brazil, no other party, with the exception of the Leftist Workers’ Party, has been able to obtain such high party support. These are trends that we see in other cases as well. For instance, there is a chapter on Fujimorismo in Peru that shows very clearly that Popular Force, which is the party of Keiko Fujimori, is a party with very strong roots in Peruvian society. They have fujimoristas voters who really identify with him and the party.

We believe that this is something new because there is literature on right-wing parties in Latin America that shows how, throughout history, most right-wing parties have been very weak, and in many countries, the right has sought to advance its interests not through partisan strategies. So economically, elites or military elites have restored other means to have an influence. This could be through lobbying, the control of media vehicles, or through military coups in some cases – Argentina being the most well-known case. There is a book by Michael Gibson where he argues that political instability in Argentina has to do with the weakness of right-wing parties. Since the political right was unable to win elections, they could not defeat Peronism, the only alternative was to subvert the rules of the game. So now we have a political right that is strong in the sense that it has roots in society. But of course, there are questions regarding the extent to which some of these new right-wing forces are willing to have a commitment to basic democratic rules. This is something that we can be very sure about here in Brazil; it is very clear that many of the followers of former President Bolsonaro have no commitment at all. You have probably heard about the invasion of Congress by Bolsonaro’s supporters last year.

Another key point of the book is reflected in the title ‘The Recasting of the Latin American Right: Polarisation and Conservative Reactions.’ We argue that what is going on in Latin America is not necessarily a cultural backlash due to changes of policy and values; for instance, because of conservative voters feeling displaced regarding changing LGBTQ rights. Actually, we argue that the radical right is not simply adapting to changes in the attitudes of mass electorates. Instead, what we see is that conservative political actors are actively trying to politicise cultural issues. So, it is not only a matter of changes in mass attitudes and values; it also has to do with conscious action by political elites by prioritising new agendas, For instance, different far-right leaders like José Antonio Kast in Chile, Bolsonaro in Brazil, and Guido Manini Rios in Uruguay, they emphasise that they are in favour of traditional families, that they are worried about gender ideology, and that they think the progressive left is subverting religious values. All this rhetoric had been used to politicise these issues.

In the past, these were not very important issues. If you look at polling platforms in presidential elections in Brazil, for instance, you see that in the past, usually, campaigns were about economic policy and social policy. Presidential candidates would not talk about abortion or LGBTQ rights. The problem, as I see it, is that Latin American societies are very much divided on these issues. This has to do with many changes. In terms of secularisation, there was a growth in the percentage of voters who do not believe in God, and at the same time, a growth in voters who are evangelicals. The thing is that evangelicals usually attend church more frequently than either Catholics or seculars, and this has implications because it is as if there is a part of society that is becoming more secular, and more progressive, and at the same time you have this other part of society that is very conservative. People may just attend church for mass but hear the pastor say: “voting for the left is like voting for the devil”, or something similar, I am not exactly sure.

Latin American societies are becoming more intensely polarised in countries that have experienced more progressive changes. This probably applies to southern cone countries: Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, and perhaps Colombia and Costa Rica. So you cannot say that it is everywhere, but there are some countries where you see strong value shifts, and policy shifts, such as legalisation of same sex marriage and advancement of LGBTQ rights. For instance in Argentina and in other countries, there is decriminalisation of abortion, and some such as Argentina have even legalised abortion. These changes clearly divide Latin American societies, capitalising on this divide is part of the explanation for why far-right politics are so successful.

Are there any common threads between other countries within Latin America, or are there more variances than there are similarities?

Well, the book does not look at all Latin American countries. We have some case studies focusing on Chile, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Columbia, and Venezuela. There is a difference because you have a large group of countries. Columbia is a good example of this trend of countries that did not experience a left turn in the early 2000s. Columbia and some countries in Central America, as well as Honduras, did not experience left-wing governments. This is different from Brazil, Chile, and Argentina, which were part of the so-called ‘left turn’. The reorganisation of the right in many of these countries has to do with a reaction to these left-wing governments. But what we do see in the book is that there are cases like Colombia where the renovation of the political right has nothing to do with the left in government because these countries did not have experience with a left turn.

One thing that we thought at the start of this project is that maybe the reason why the political right is becoming more radical is because of a reaction to the left wing. We had this idea that perhaps it has to do with a more strategic thing in the sense that you have these right-wing actors and they see the emergence of left-wing populists, like Chavez, and the Peronists in Argentina, and then they adopt a more radical outlook as a reaction. However, I found in the end that this may not be the case. I would say in some cases, these right-wing parties took advantage of a certain frustration we have in left-wing governments, for example, in Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. Now, here in Brazil, this is very clear because prior to Bolsonaro’s election in 2018, we had a major corruption scandal in 2014 that involved top Workers’ Party officials and ministers. This was really bad because it allowed the emerging forces to make this association between the political left and corruption – the idea now is that the political left is intrinsically corrupt. This is a right-wing strategy. It did not happen everywhere, there are some cases where you could see that. This would certainly apply to Argentina as well, but it does not apply to all cases.

There is some variation in what concerns the electoral strength of the political right. There are some countries like El Salvador, Chile, and Brazil (where the political right is very strong). Brazil is another example where you see, over time, right-wing parties have a very substantial share of the vote in national elections. It is something between thirty-forty percent of the vote in national legislative elections. And so, we have this country where the political right is always strong. Maybe the parties are not the same, but they keep a certain representation in Congress. This is different from other cases, like Bolivia for instance, where you see a rapid decline. In some cases, right-wing parties actually disappeared and there was a collapse of right-wing parties. The same thing happened in Venezuela, but this has to do with the fact that Venezuela is not a democracy so the right-wing parties have a harder time organising. This is an important difference across countries. You have these cases that I mentioned: Chile, Brazil, El Salvador, and so on, but you also have other cases where you see the opposite trend in the sense that right wings are always weak. This is the case of Argentina; Argentina never had relevant right-wing parties until very recently. The problem is that Macri’s [former president Mauricio Macri] party was created just after 2000 and then after 2010 the right-wing vote grew very rapidly. More recently, you had the election of Javier Milei, who is a far-right politician, in a country where the political right was virtually non-existent.

In countries like Brazil and Chile, what happened is that the political right was already strong and then you saw a radicalisation of a part of the right. You also see the emergence of new parties, but in some cases, these parties are created by politicians who were affiliated with existing parties. This is the case of Kast in Chile who was associated with UDI, the Independent Democratic Union, which is a mainstream right-wing party in Chile. He abandoned UDI and created his own party. This is different from the cast of Argentina where you have a businessman, Mauricio Macri, who was not previously involved in politics. He had no partisan connections and built this new party. It starts from NGOs which have connections to the business community in Argentina. These are differences in terms of the origins of these parties. In some cases, they are the result of an intra-elite competition. In other cases, society actors decide who creates these parties.

Let’s focus more on your own personal research, more specifically your expertise in Brazilian politics. How much of an impact do you think ideology had on the success of right-wing parties? Do you think that Brazilian voters are so firm in their ideological stance that they would always vote for a right-wing party, or do other effects like the economy have a larger impact?

If you take survey data with a representative sample of the Brazilian electorate, you see that over time the percentage of voters who are actually able to position themselves in the left-to-right continuum, is disproportionately low even for Latin American standards. Whereas if you look at survey data on Uruguay for instance, you see that around eighty to ninety percent of voters were actually able to say they were centre left or centre right. One interesting thing is that the more recent surveys, and especially the surveys that were applied just after the 2018 election, found a much higher percentage of voters who were able to position themselves. This increase was mostly a result of the growth of voters waiting to fight with the political right. I suspect this is mostly a campaign effect because Bolsonaro was a right-wing candidate who relied on ideology and ideological terms during the campaign. His electoral campaign was based on the idea that he was fighting against the left, that the left was evil. All the time he was associating the political left with bad things like corruption and the perversion of moral values, and the political right with good things like the fight against corruption, and for freedom. This was the first time we had a right-wing presidential candidate using this kind of rhetoric. I suspect that in part, the fact that more people are being able to position themselves has to do with campaign effects. During elections, people are exposed to political messages and they become more interested in politics. However, I think we have to wait and see more survey waves to understand if this is a permanent change or whether this is a short-term fluctuation. Maybe in the next election, Bolsonaro will not be able to run again because he was condemned by our Supreme Electoral Court. So, maybe a different right-wing candidate, even if he has the support of Bolsonaro, won’t be able to create this ideological identification.

Just to summarise everything I said, I am not sure if this has to do with ideology. What I can tell you for sure is that Brazilian voters are indeed polarised, but this polarisation is what we call affective polarisation. And affective polarisation does not necessarily correlate with ideological polarisation because affective polarisation has to do with group identities. You have some voters who very much like the political left – the Workers’ Party, which is the most important left-wing party in Brazil, and on the other side you have voters who identify with Bolsonaro. These two groups hate each other, similar to two football teams. To me, this is the best metaphor.

When we think about ideology in political science, we think of something that is more rational. That is because ideology has to do with the idea of voting for a party which aligns with your values and preferences. This is a more rational thing, different from something that is more emotional like simply ‘I hate President Lula’ or ‘I hate left-wingers, I think they are all dishonest bad people and that they don’t believe in God.’ Affective polarisation has to do with stereotyping. You have these stereotypes in your mind and usually, these stereotypes are made up of bad things about the other group. This is very clear in Brazil for the first time, and I can tell you that because I have lived here for most of my life apart from four years in England and some six months in the United States. Brazil now sees elections and political allegiances affecting interpersonal relations. This is something new in Brazilian politics. I feel that Brazilian politics is becoming more like American politics.

This is bad because now you have a situation in which someone who likes the Workers’ Party is not going to date someone who is a Bolsonarist – someone who likes Bolsonaro. This would not happen 5-10 years ago, so I would say this is the major change that has happened in Brazil. We political scientists still do not know what to do to fix this state of affairs.

What do you think are the most important areas for future research on the topic of polarisation in Latin America? Are there emerging trends or regions you believe scholars should be paying attention to?

A major topic to be explored is how polarisation is connected with religious identities. Here in Brazil, this is very clear. I talk to my colleagues in other Latin American countries and I have friends who live in the United States and they tell me similar stories. I suspect that a part of the story of polarisation has to do with religion. It also has to do with differences across generations. Here in Brazil, it is very clear that older people have lived during a time in which religion was very, very important. Most people would go to church, people would have a Bible in their houses, and many schools would teach religion. I think societies [and individuals] have become much more secular, even Catholics in Brazil. Religion is not very important today; for example, I am Catholic but I never go to church. This is part of the story of polarisation, because you have a value change.

On top of that, you can also say that Latin Americans today have much more access to education, especially higher education, than they had thirty or forty years ago. People with more years of schooling may be more progressive. So all of these trends contribute to polarisation. It is different from Europe, and the United States is also different from Europe because in Europe far right parties emerged in societies that were mostly secular. Secularisation occurred in France, in the United Kingdom, and in Germany many, many years ago. This is a long-term process. I can tell you for sure that European societies are much more secular than Latin American societies and are much more secular than the United States. This implies that religion becomes very important in the political arena. These religious divisions become very important.

Religious identities are often associated with stereotypes. For instance, in Brazil, I know many people who do not like evangelicals. They think they are all fundamentalists, radicals, and stupid, and that they believe everything the pastor says. If you talk to evangelicals, they are probably going to say that Catholics are false Christians because they do not go to church. So this contributed to polarisation as well, it is a sort of affective polarisation since people are creating stereotypes based on religious identities. This may translate into ideological polarisation as well because what we see in Latin America now is that religion is becoming a strong predictor of vote choice. Usually, voters who attend church more often and who think religion is very important, are more likely to vote for right-wing candidates – candidates who have a connection to the church. I believe this is a topic that is very important and needs to be analysed.

What we are seeing in Latin America is a process that is similar to what is going on in the United States with the presidential election; it is very clear that Trump supporters are on average more likely to be Christian fundamentalists. They are more religious and attend church more often. And then if you go to the Democrat side, it is completely different. You are going to see a more progressive secular electorate. This model of evangelical churches that was created in the United States was important for Latin America because major evangelical churches in Brazil are organized in a manner inspired by evangelical Protestants in the United States. Furthermore, pastors became owners of major TV networks and newspapers. Various media outlets are under the control of evangelical churches and have a very clear ideological orientation. In the last election, this was very clear, and was reflected in a media that is increasingly partisan, in part because many media outlets are controlled by evangelical churches. All this contributes to polarisation.

What advice would you give to an aspiring academic?

My first advice would be that people should think of academia as a job, like any other. What I see is that young, early career scholars sometimes sacrifice their weekends and vacations to publish, and to do research because they think that this is necessary. So my advice is to not do this. Have some time to rest – read a book that has nothing to do with your specialisation. Your mind is going to work better if you have time to rest. That would be my main advice.

My other advice is that many people believe that success in an academic career has to do with merit, effort and all this kind of stuff. I think this is only partly true. I know some people who are very smart, who have done PhDs in top political science departments, but were not able to find good positions simply because when they finished the market was really bad. Some of these people decided to go to work at Google, Facebook, or in the financial markets. So my advice is that people should be aware that sometimes it does not depend on merit and people should not blame themselves for that. I know real-life cases of people who were not able to get tenured positions, which is what most people want, not because they don’t have merit but simply because they were unlucky. These are my two main pieces of advice. People should not have an illusion, they should not romanticise a career in academia because it still has the same problems as other careers.