The evangelical foreign policy model: Jair Bolsonaro and evangelicals in Brazil

Abstract

The article proposes an evangelical foreign policy model to analyse the relationship between evangelical groups and conservative governments in foreign policymaking. Using Brazil as a case study, we argue that the model is defined by the convergence of views and interests between conservative cabinet members and domestic evangelical groups on four foreign policy issues that are critical to evangelicals worldwide – the relationship with Israel, persecution of Christian minorities, abortion rights, and evangelical missions in Africa. To analyse the convergence, we use an original database of 207 speeches from Brazilian evangelical parliamentarians (Evangelical Parliamentary Front) and 1992 discourses from Jair Bolsonaro’s cabinet members from January 2019 to July 2022, as well as multiple documents from the main evangelical groups in Brazil. In the case of Brazil, this is the first time that typical religious considerations have been officially adopted by the country’s foreign policy, indicating the growing importance of evangelical thinking in Brazilian politics. This is also one of the first analyses, not centred in the United States, that shows how views and interests of evangelical groups and conservative governments converge in international affairs, broadening perspectives on the political participation of the ever-growing evangelical movement in the Global South.