The reactivation of the right in Brazil

Abstract

What is the structure of the ideological predispositions of the Brazilian electorate and how are they affected by the strategies of the different political forces? The article seeks to show, based on data from Datafolha, that there was a continuity between what was observed right after the 1988 re-democratization and the thirty years that followed, namely, the preference for the right by the relative majority of the electorate in surveys of self-location on the ideological spectrum. Then, using the theoretical notion of activation, the article tests, based on research by Eseb, the hypothesis that, between 2006 and 2014, there was a tendency to disable ideological predispositions. The conclusion is that Lulism depolarized the political dispute and it was up to Bolsonaro, with a radical stance, to reactivate the conservatism in the 2018 election, when the right-wing field came to gather 45% of voters.