A processual framework for understanding the rise of the populist right: the case of Brazil (2013–2018)

Abstract

How and in what sequence do social structures, contingent events, and agents’ decisions combine over time to bring about a new populist right? To answer this question, we propose a framework to analyze social processes spanning three levels of analysis: global political economy, national political articulation, and subnational political geography. We challenge static theories that focus solely on the “supply and demand” for populism, as well as purely contingent accounts of a “perfect storm.” Instead, we argue that processes across these three levels link together in causal chains to produce an “ecosystem” of right-wing populist support. To specify this framework, we analyze the ascendance of Jair Bolsonaro to the presidency of Brazil between 2013 and 2018, drawing upon quantitative macroeconomic and protest event data, qualitative interview and archival data collected from private sector actors and social movements, and geospatial electoral data. Finally, we probe the generalizability of this analytical framework through a discussion of secondary work on recent cases of right-wing populism in the Global South. By focusing on the dynamic connection of inter-scalar processes over time, we illustrate how our framework paves the way for further conjunctural analyses of the current right-wing populist upsurge.