Neoconservative Incursions into Party Politics: The Cases of Argentina and Chile

JOSÉ MANUEL MORÁN FAÚNDES; JUAN MARCO VAGGIONE

Abortion and Democracy. Contentious Body Politics in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay.

Routledge

Lugar: New York; Año: 2021; p. 93 - 113

Neoconservatism in Latin America, with its religious matrix, has undergone changes and adaptations in the face of sexual and reproductive rights advances in the region. While the defense of a reproductive and matrimonial morality cuts through Latin American history, the impact of feminist and LGBTI movements has given rise to a new stage that manifests itself in the complexity of the actors and in the diversity of arguments and strategies that such actors favor. The Catholic hierarchy remains a central actor, yet civil society organizations (self-called ´pro-life´ or ´pro-family´ organizations) as well as Evangelical leaders also play key roles. In this context, an important question that arises is how conservative political actions intersect with the consolidation of democracy in Latin American countries. Given these developments and the contemporary prevalence of electoral democracies, it is important to examine the interplay between the neoconservative agenda and the political party system, including the appropriation of neoconservative initiatives by party politics, henceforth partidization. Precisely, this chapter will analyze such connections, with the aim to assess how neoconservatism is channeled through, and how it influences, party politics. To this end, we look into the Argentinean and Chilean cases to identify how the neoconservative agenda, especially considering abortion as a topic in dispute, is articulated through political parties.