Demographic polarization and the rise of the far right: Brazil’s 2018 presidential election

Abstract

Does the recent electoral success of far-right populists represent a mere rejection of the political and economic status quo, or has it revealed deeper cultural divides? Historically, demographic cleavages have been poor predictors of vote choice and partisanship in Latin America. However, during Brazil’s 2018 presidential election campaign, right-wing candidate Jair Bolsonaro fomented conflict across lines of gender, race, and religion. We argue that his candidacy activated latent, previously unexploited grievances in the electorate. Using survey data from an original five-wave online panel conducted between July 2018 and January 2019, we examine the effect of demographic cleavages on presidential vote choice. In stark contrast to prior elections, we find clear evidence of demographic divides in 2018, partially mediated by issue positions. Bolsonaro’s campaign and subsequent election thus appear to have created new identity-based alignments in Brazil’s electorate. Our findings shed further light on the global resurgence of the far right, suggesting that far-right candidates can attract new bases of support through demographic polarization, exploiting differences in values and issue preferences by gender, race, ethnicity, and religion.

Assessing the fourth wave of the populist radical right: Jair Bolsonaro’s voters in comparative perspective

“…Finally, and regarding specific factors to understand Bolsonaro's support, as most of the previous studies have pointed out (Setzler, 2021;Layton et al, 2021), we expect that race (the withes), belonging to the Evangelist religious confession, those more critic with corruption scandals and, above all, those with the highest anti-PT feelings are more likely to cast a vote for Bolsonaro.…”

“…Defining nativism as a mix of nationalism and xenophobia (Mudde, 2007), in Brazil the phenomenon needs to be observed in the light of an ideal of nation raised by Bolsonaro and notably averse to the constitutional protection of minority groups mainly conceived in racial terms. Previous research has pointed out that Bolsonaro's supporters are more likely to be men, white and with high levels of income and education -among the middle and upper classes (Layton et al, 2021).…”

Cultural Evolution and Digital Media: Diffusion of Fake News About COVID-19 on Twitter

“…Then, the social bubble would act as a buffer, shielding the individual from the loss of prestige. The disclosure of this bubble can be demonstrated by the intense polarization of ideas [ 28 , 47 ]. The ideological issue promotes the conformity of ideas or behaviors through the feeling of belonging to a group [ 23 ].…”

Introduction The Grassroots Right in Latin America: Patterns, Causes, and Consequences

“…It is important to distinguish the rise of the grassroots right from two other recent trends in Latin America: autocratization and populism. In some cases, these three trends go together: most notably in the Brazilian movement leading to the downfall of Dilma Rousseff and the rise of Jair Bolsonaro (Dias et al this volume; Gold and Peña this volume; Cohen et al Forthcoming; Layton et al 2021). Grassroots right mobilization also coincided with authoritarianism in the 2019 movement overturning Evo Morales’s disputed electoral victory, which led to the one- year right-wing rule of Jeanine Áñez in Bolivia.…”

“…Meanwhile, most existing studies of the right have focused on electoral participation and party organizations. These studies have analyzed the public opinion foundations behind voters’ support of right-wing parties and candidates (Samuels and Zucco 2018; Wiesehomeier and Doyle 2014; Layton et al 2021), changes in the linkage strategies and targeted appeals used by parties on the right to woo voters (Holland 2013; Luna 2014), strategies to build right-wing parties (Loxton 2016; Vommaro et al 2015), and the relationship between right-wing parties and democracy (Gibson 1996; Middlebrook 2000; Roberts 2014). Yet right-wing mobilization happens through both electoral and nonelectoral channels (Bowen 2014; Eaton 2014; Luna and Rovira Kaltwasser 2014a, 13–14).…”