Economic crisis and democratic backsliding: the rise of the far-right in Argentina in comparative perspective

GABRIEL VOMMARO

Gainesville

Conferencia; 72 Annual Conference "Democratic Backsliding and Resistances in Latin America and Beyond"; 2024

Center for Latin American Studies, University of Florida

The rise of Javier Milei follows the rise of other far-right expressions that have recently emerged in the Americas. His emergence was surprising because of his outsider character, the radical approach of his discourse on economic issues and the fact that, despite the weakness of his organizational resources, he has defeated the two dominant coalitions in the electoral arena so far. This paper analyzes Milei's rise in comparative perspective. We focus on three dimensions: the structure of political opportunities associated with his rise, the type of programmatic offer and the organizational resources on which he relies. We compare his emergence with that of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil in order to establish similarities and differences between the two processes. We argue, first, that the rise of the far-right is preceded by economic setbacks of the incumbent lefts. It is the weakness of the distributive promise -and the effects of that weakness in the generation of a certain "distributive fatigue"- and not its acceleration that favors the access of the far-right to power. Second, and related to this, although the components of the programmatic offer of the far-right is variable, the economic-distributive issue is fundamental. This is usually associated with a "populist" criticism of the political establishment, accused of "stealing" the fruits of the efforts of "good citizens". Third, riding the crisis of the traditional political forces and based on a powerful populist appeal, the far-right does not necessarily need to rely on solid organizational resources to come to power, although this weakness raises questions about the way they govern and their relationship with representative democracy.