Competitive New Right-Wing Parties in Latin America in Adverse Times: Argentina’s Republican Proposal in Comparative Perspective

GABRIEL VOMMARO

Congreso; LASA 2021; 2021

Latin American Studies Association

This paper addresses the emergence and growth of new competitive right-wing parties in contemporary Latin America, in a context of left turn and of growing consensus of progressive social and cultural agendas. It places the core case of Argentina’s Republican Proposal (PRO) party in comparative perspective in an effort to understand the differing degrees of new right-wing parties’ success in adverse circumstances. Based on long-term research using a variety of methods, I show that competitiveness has been driven by three factors: programmatic innovation by personalistic leaders; organizational mobilization of both core and noncore constituencies; and elite fear of the "Venezuela model" and/or conservative groups fear of "gender ideology." My model explains the success of right-wing parties without authoritarian roots, which contradicts the expectations of the authoritarian successor parties theory.