Right-Wing Populism in Latin America and Beyond

With contributions from 22 scholars and empirical material from 29 countries within and beyond Latin America, this book identifies subtypes of populism to further understand right-wing populist movements, parties, leaders, and governments. It seeks to examine whether the term populism continues to have any validity and what relationship(s) it has to democracy. - Part 1 is an exploration of populism as an analytical concept. It asks how populism can and should be defined; whether populism can be broken down into subtypes; and whether the use of the term within and beyond Latin America in recent scholarship has been consistent. - Part 2 focuses on political economy, and specifically whether political economy explanations of both the causes and consequences of right-wing populism fit recent cases in Latin America, Europe, and the Philippines. - Part 3 examines institutions, and in particular institutions of coercion and digital communication. It contains chapter studies on various aspects of populism in Brazil, Spain, India, and Italy. - Part 4 concerns the coronavirus pandemic and the specific case of right-wing populism in Brazil. It examines the Bolsonaro government's response to the coronavirus pandemic, and how that response exacerbated the health crisis and reduced the government's popularity. Right-Wing Populism in Latin America and Beyond is a timely and socially relevant contribution to the understanding of contemporary challenges to democracy. It will be of interest to scholars, students, and practitioners eager to understand the rise in right-wing agendas across the globe.

Anthony Pereira is the Director of the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center at Florida International University. From 2010 to 2020 he was the founding director of the Brazil Institute at King's College London. His books include Modern Brazil: A Very Short Introduction (2020); (with Jeff Garmany) Understanding Contemporary Brazil (Routledge, 2018); and Ditadura e Repressão (Dictatorship and Repression, 2010).

1. Introduction Part 1: Theory 2. Intellectual Imperialism and Selection Bias in the Study of Populism 3. Popular Sovereignty, Institutionality, and the Dilemmas of Democratizing Democracy 4. Populisms in Power: Plural and Ambiguous Part 2: Political Economy 5. Economic Globalization and Populism in Latin America and Beyond 6. The Political Economy and Political Psychology of Public Support for Right-Wing Populism in Comparative Perspective 7. Voting for Violence: The New Middle-class and Authoritarian Populist Presidents in the Philippines and Brazil Part 3: Institutions 8. Populism and Anti-Globalism on Twitter: Similarities of Conspiratorial Discourse and Content Diffusion On Social Networks In Brazil, Spain, Latin America, and Italy 9. "I will end everything": Brazilian far-right populism, scorched earth politics and the erasure of bureaucrats' memories 10. Narendra Modi and The Police In India: National Populism, Politics of Fear, Victimization, and Cultural Policing 11. Bolsonaro's Brazil: National Populism and The Role of The Police Part 4: Covid-19 12. The Hydroxychloroquine Alliance: How Far-Right Leaders and Alt-Science Preachers Came Together to Tout a Miraculous Drug 13. Populism, the Pandemic, and the Crisis of Bolsonarismo 14. Four-Squared Denialism: The Uses of Fake News for The Political Construction of Identity in Bolsonaro's Populist Government During the Pandemic 15. "Enfrentar vírus como homem": Bolsonaro's Populism and Performing Hegemonic Masculinity During the COVID-19 Pandemic 16. Conclusion