Who is entitled to have rights? This essay examines how right-wing movements attempt to prevent individuals, especially women and members of LGBT groups, from accessing equal rights through the use of terms such as “moral worth” and “family values.” At the core of our discussion of the backlash against social rights in Latin America is the need to compare and contrast the case examined here with similar movements outside the region. The vast enterprise of studies on right-wing movements in Western Europe rarely travels outside a few national boundaries. Eastern Europe and the United States are occasionally included. For the most part, right-wing movements are not seen as comparable. Sometimes the reason for excluding Latin America is expressly stated, particularly because the historical experiences are so distinct—for example, the long duration of personal or military dictatorships. Interpretations of right-wing movements in Latin America by scholars outside the region tend to view them as associated with the period of authoritarian rule in the 1970s and 1980s or misunderstand them as having little impact on political life (Meyer and Staggenborg Reference Meyer and Staggenborg1996, 1630). Analysis within the region has tended to focus on right-wing political parties, religious groups, or the military (Fortes Reference Fortes2016, Goldstein Reference Goldstein2019; Hunter Reference Hunter1997; Luna and Rovira Reference Luna and Kaltwasser2014). There are few studies of right-wing movements comparing regions. Latin America is thus seen as largely irrelevant to the comparative study of right-wing movements.
This article disagrees. It contends that the problem is not the distinctiveness or irrelevance of Latin America's right-wing movements but the weakness of existing analytical frameworks. Despite differences among right-wing movements, comparison is not only possible but also contributes to analytical refinement. New, powerful right-wing movements have emerged in the region as a response to social justice gains from the 1990s to the present. The contexts of the rise of right-wing movements, the political implications of this development, and how comparative frameworks can travel outside the region are the three pillars guiding this essay.
We start with the third pillar: how to create a strong conceptual framework that defines right-wing mobilization in the region and allows for comparison elsewhere. A central step in building such a framework is defining right-wing movements. Scholars have struggled to develop a good definition. Some focus on the conservative nature of such movements in attempting to preserve the status quo, leading to a “backlash” against or a “rollback” from gains made by the left. Others focus on the economic or neoliberal right, which attempts to trim down the state and advance free trade and antiglobalization movements. There is a so-called moral right that focuses on decay in traditional values, such as the family, heteronormativity, and traditional gender and sexual norms. A “nostalgic” right idealizes an authoritarian or fascist past that established security and order, while a nativist right-wing is xenophobic, nationalist, and racist, threatened by immigration and “foreign” values and interests.
How can one definition capture this breadth and diversity? Rea (Reference Rea2018) offers such a uniting understanding of the contemporary right: the notion of merit and deservedness. Right-wing ideology focuses on rights that are bestowed on those who “prove” their value. Rights for the left correspond to individuals or groups on the basis of equality or humanness (Rea Reference Rea2018, 91).Footnote 1 Rea's definition operates for all groups. The differences—fear, threat, nostalgia, conservatism, morality—do not define movements but rather reflect how movements are framed and when and how they respond to particular political, social, and economic moments.
In the case of Latin America, countermovements, or backlash movements, are perhaps the most pervasive in the region. Framing, especially naming, blaming, aiming, and claiming (Payne Reference Payne2000, 22–24), allows for a discourse of threat or crisis that unites a broad group behind political action. They respond to an identifiable cause of political, social, moral, or economic problems. Defined as “an organized response to a social movement, with the purpose of blocking the movement's activities, resisting change, and presenting alternative points of view,” (Scott and Marshall Reference Scott and Marshall2015)Footnote 2 these countermovements or backlash movements exist to oppose and counter, or roll back, the social, economic, political, and cultural rights achieved by social movements advancing gender and other rights in the region. We look at the case of Brazil to discuss how mobilizing against advances made by LGBT and feminist movements gained momentum in the country.
HOW, WHEN, AND WHY? POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY FOR RIGHT-WING MOBILIZATION IN BRAZIL
Political moments do not necessarily create movements but can allow them to take advantage of certain opportunities to broaden their base of support and heighten their power (Caiani and Della Porta Reference Caiani and Porta2011; Caiani, Della Porta, and Wagemann Reference Caiani, Della Porta and Wagemann2012). These political opportunities may shape the kinds of framing processes in which right-wing movements become involved, such as the legitimating myths and coded language they use, to heighten their appeal within civil society at key moments. When focusing on political opportunity, instability and economic downturn are the two conditions most commonly associated with the rise of right-wing mobilization. In the case of Brazil, however, right-wing movements had a compelling space to mobilize. In addition to economic crisis and political instability, moral panic revolving around gender and sexuality gained ground in 2013.
In 2013, when bus fares became more expensive across Brazil, a social movement called Movimento Passe Livre, which demands free access to public transportation, mobilized (Purdy Reference Purdy2019; Saad-Filho Reference Saad-Filho2013). First the city of São Paulo and soon many capitals in Brazil demanded reductions in public transport fares. What started as a clear claim to access public transportation chaotically spiraled into a loose movement demanding better infrastructure, public security, education, and other requests. The mobilization behind social spending contrasted with a counterexample of public spending on the expensive structures designed for the FIFA World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. The timing of the mobilization corresponded with the economic crisis following the end of the commodities’ export cycle and a decade of economic growth. Not only had transportation prices increased but austerity measures had begun to have devastating effects (de Souza Santos Reference de Souza Santos2019, 160).
In the context of questioning over priorities during the period of growth and their long-term implications, Movimento Brasil Livre (MBL), a neoliberal right-wing movement, gained ground. With a slogan to free the country from corruption, economic crisis, and left-wing ideology (especially focusing on an antiparty program called Schools without Parties), the movement reached a crescendo after the June 2013 street riots. It was pivotal in the demonstrations demanding President Dilma Rousseff's impeachment. Exposing how this right-wing movement exploited political and economic instability to create opportunities is not the end of the story. This group not only responded to crisis, it was instrumental in creating it.
Creating a threat, or “moral panic” (Cohen Reference Cohen2011) is key to understanding MBL's impact. The movement's engagement in anti-LGBT and antifeminism attacks was fundamental to its popularity. MBL fostered fear that LGBT movements were promoting homosexuality in the schools by teaching young children how to become gay. It catalyzed a movement that linked anticorruption, neoliberalism, anti-abortion, and heteronormative agendas. It not only combined issue areas but united other movements behind this common cause, namely, conservative political parties and religious groups (mainly Catholic and Evangelical). Together, they claimed to act in defence of “the family” by reestablishing traditional and clearly defined male and female roles, marriage, and parenting, with no tolerance for abortion or homosexual relationships.
The fight against corruption and crime associated with the threat represented by gender rights fed into Jair Bolsonaro's law and order 2018 presidential campaign. Before running for president, Bolsonaro had been a member of the Brazilian Congress for 27 years, and yet he was running for president as an outsider by emphasizing his position in the baixo-clero (a term denoting members with a low-profile in Brazil's Congress). Politicians in such positions highlight their ignorance of the political system to avoid any appearance of connection to corruption schemes. The strength of Bolsonaro's campaign was thus twofold: a weak political performance in the Congress that gave him distance from corruption schemes, and a strong vocalization against LGBT rights and in favor of a stronger police and military apparatus for the country on social media. In addition, he heightened ties with Evangelicals by being baptized in Israel, though he proclaimed to be Catholic, which made him close to both faiths.
Saving the country thus meant denying LGBT and feminist groups their rights while protecting the rights of others (heterosexuals, neoliberals, and Christian religious groups). This is the political movement that drew on sentiments opposing political parties and particularly corruption while forging a neoliberal, moralist, and antifeminist agenda.
How MBL united forces that crossed class lines, to include the poor and those dependent on the state, particularly single mothers and those racially and religiously marginalized, depended on its mobilization strategies. The movement used street politics with banners, slogans, and even choreographed dances that in their form (rather than their content) represented popular sectors. In addition, MBL also presented a nationalist imagery of Brazil as masculine, strong, and protective, capable of saving the country from threat. The victory of Bolsonaro in Brazil's 2018 presidential elections was a result of this mobilization.
IMPLICATIONS
MBL's strategy has certain inherent limitations. It has managed to unite forces behind an agenda that advances rights for a few (wealthier, white, religious majorities) and not the majority still dependent on the state for survival. It has also depended on economic and political instability that may not prevail over the long term. Capitalizing on a particular moment is not viable over the long term and suggests that the movement may lose its momentum.
In addition, MBL's platform is unlikely to sustain its popular appeal. The solution to gender ideology in the schools through private education and homeschooling necessarily entails restricted access to education for the majority of Brazilians. Not only do such exclusionary solutions limit popular appeal, they also threaten democracy. MBL advances authoritarian solutions to perceived threats and danger.
These implications demand comparison. In places such as the United States and Western Europe, the robustness of institutions is often seen as a bulwark against the development of anti-rights movements into authoritarian regimes. Whether authoritarianism is what differentiates Latin American countries from other regions in the world may be seen in the case of Brazil, as Bolsonaro's government has given increasing space to the military in governance roles, especially within certain ministries. One thing we already know, dictatorship alone is not a reason to avoid comparison across regions. The context of emergence of right-wing movements and political implications travel beyond Brazil.
CONCLUSION
The focus on Latin American progressive social movements often ignores the emergence of countermovements or backlash movements. This article discusses the rise of right-wing mobilization in Brazil, connecting that phenomenon with approaches to right-wing movements in Europe and elsewhere in Latin America. What Brazil demonstrates is the ability of such right-wing movements to use the context of economic crisis and political instability to generate moral panic. Lessons from the Brazilian case travel beyond the country and the region.
A unifying definition of right-wing movements offered by Rea (Reference Rea2018) implies that such movements can legitimate violence against undeserving individuals; in Brazil, these are the LGBT and feminist movements perceived as threatening “the family.” Brazil's variant of right-wing movements unites otherwise fragmented and incompatible groups behind a heteronormative agenda. It thus is comparable to other movements outside the country and the region that have the mobilizational capacity drawn from political opportunities (economic crisis and political instability) to create perceived threats to the nation. The impact on democracy in Brazil is clear. A next step for research is to look more comparatively at the impact of other right-wing movements on contemporary democracies.
