Right-wing Government Research Articles

The Failures of Neoliberalism in Brazil

: The Brazilian economy struggled throughout the 1980s with a severe balance of payments crisis and high inflation, interrupting thirty years of rapid growth and structural change. Simultaneously, Brazil underwent a democratic political transition culminating in the end of a twenty-year military dictatorship and the approval of a new social democratic constitution. In the 1990s, the alignment of the country’s economic policy with Washington Consensus reforms resulted in low growth and another major crisis at the end of this decade. In the 2000s, after a period of greater dynamism induced by exports, domestic consumption, and public investment, a new round of neoliberal reforms was introduced in 2015. This relaunching of Washington Consensus reforms led to economic collapse. Neoliberalism was radicalized in 2018 after the election of a right-wing government, and the economy has entered into a period of recession and low growth. We discuss the social basis of neoliberalism in Brazil, arguing that its main policies and ideologies form a very unstable social structure of accumulation. Neoliberalism in a society as unequal as Brazil’s enters into conflict with the democratic vote, generating persistent political instability and a pendulum-shaped political evolution.

Populisms: Inherently Illiberal or Plausibly Democratic?

The central question of this paper is whether a constructive relationship between populism and democratisation may exist, or whether all types of populism inevitably lead to illiberal regimes. Anglo-Saxon and Eurocentric traditions tend to identify populism with fascism, as in the case of authoritarian right-wing regimes, or with left-wing politics as in the case of socialist or communist systems that produce totalitarian regimes. Critical theorists consider populism to be a reaction to a perceived gap separating democratic institutions from the popular sovereignty from which political regimes derive their legitimacy. This paper examines populisms from three main perspectives: (1) negative views of populism from a liberal democracy perspective; (2) positive views from theorists who see populism as a legitimate expression of popular sovereignty; and (3) some ways in which populism may be viewed based on Leonardo Morlino’s definition of a hybrid regime and the experiences of several Latin American countries.

Latin America’s right-wing shift: cruelty and the government of other bodies during the neoliberal stage of capital

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to analyze the relationship between the recent rise to power of right-wing governments across Latin America, the imperialist dynamics of systems designed to exert control over bodies as structured by the region's nation-states, the neoliberal stage of capital and what is herein identified as the patriarchal-colonial canalization of cruelty. The premise being set forth is that the ideological shift towards the right-wing as manifested throughout the region, represents a direct expression of the manner in which the normalized dynamics of control that have long governed and controlled bodies across the Latin American continent, has been renewed with the rise of neoliberalism. This control is sustained by a current of the cruelty derived from the colonial matrix, in which suffering is canalized towards the bodies relegated to the position of the ‘Other’; non-white, non-binary, non-male, etc. An attempt will be made to demonstrate that right-wing Latin American governments have deepened the pre-existing divide between —on the one hand—bodies who are targeted by biopolitical strategies and —on the other— of bodies who are the object of cruelty as a means of governing them. This shall be done through a comparative analysis of right-wing governments in Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru; drawing on a feminist reading of Fanón. This analysis is set against within the bounds of de-colonial and post-colonial feminist epistemologies and feminist cultural studies, which —since the late 90s— have been positioning affections and ‘embodiment’ as categories that fuel a radical commitment towards understanding and transforming the relationship between politics and culture.

Far-right populism and foreign policy identity: Jair Bolsonaro's ultra-conservatism and the new politics of alignment

Abstract In the last two decades, far-right populists have formed governments all over the world. However, systematic analyses on how far-right leaders recreate their countries' foreign policy identity are still underdeveloped. In this article, we analyse how far-right populist leaders use their conservative identity-set to align with other right-wing governments and how they use the same conservative repertoire to deal with ideological rivals. More precisely, we argue that these leaders tend to overemphasize a deep conservative identity-set towards other far-right populist governments, something we call ‘thick conservative identity’. This profoundly conservative identity-set is composed of three national role conceptions: anti-globalism, nationalism and anti-foe. However, they do not repeat this identity-set towards ideological rivals, preferring to use a more nuanced and contradictory one, something we call ‘thin conservative identity’. The trigger of such difference is the anticipated mutual expectation of conservatism between Ego and Alter, in which Ego mimics Alter's deep conservatism. We use Jair Bolsonaro's alignment with Donald Trump and Bolsonaro's relationship with China as illustrative cases. We use the main concepts of role theory to understand both how conservative alignments are created and how far-right governments deal with ideological rivals.

Housing Prices and Government Approval: The Impact of Housing Booms on Left- and Right-Wing Governments in 16 Advanced Industrialized Countries

AbstractIn this article, we argue that rising housing prices increase voter approval of incumbent governments because such a rise increases personal wealth, which leads to greater voter satisfaction. This effect is strongest under right-wing governments because those who benefit from rising prices—homeowners—are more likely to be right-leaning. Non-homeowners, who are more likely to vote for left-leaning parties, will view rising housing prices as a disadvantage and therefore feel the government does not serve them well, which will mitigate the advantage to left-wing governments. We find support for our arguments using both macro-level data (housing prices and government approval ratings in 16 industrialized countries between 1960 and 2017) and micro-level data (housing prices and individuals’ vote choices in the United Kingdom using the British Household Panel Survey). The findings imply that housing booms benefit incumbent governments generally and right-wing ones in particular.

‘Let the virus spread’. A doctrine of pandemic management for the libertarian-authoritarian capital accumulation regime

Debates have grown around the initial COVID-19 response of radical right-wing governments such as those of the UK, the US and Brazil. These governments initially let the virus spread among the population and delayed the enforcement of strong social distancing measures such as a lockdown. Focusing on the UK’s early response to COVID-19, this article builds on Nicos Poulantzas’ Marxist theory of the state to highlight how this pandemic management doctrine stemmed from changes in the UK’s capitalist class. It traces the ideological grounding of this doctrine, relating it to the rise of libertarian think tanks in British conservative circles and shifts in the policy committees in charge of pandemic preparedness. It suggests that this pandemic response is an episode of the ongoing replacement of the dominant neoliberal accumulation regime with a new libertarian-authoritarian one and examines how this latter materialises the interests of an emerging group of ‘disaster capitalists’. Therefore, it takes the COVID-19 crisis as an example of how the reconfiguration of capitalist accumulation regimes articulates a new doctrine of catastrophe management, radical right-wing ideologies, libertarian-authoritarian institutions and the growing power of capitalist actors able to profit from extreme events.

Are governments paying a price for austerity? Fiscal consolidations reduce government approval

AbstractWhat are the political effects of fiscal consolidations? Theoretical considerations suggest that consolidations should reduce the public’s support for their governments, but empirical studies have found surprisingly small effects on government support. However, most of these studies analyze electoral outcomes, which are separated from the consolidation by a multi-link causal chain. We argue that more direct measures of government support, such as executive approval, show much stronger negative effects of consolidation, since they are less affected by the strategic timing of consolidations or the political alternatives on offer. We analyze a time series cross-sectional dataset of executive approval in 14 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries from 1978 to 2014, using the narrative approach to measure fiscal consolidations. We find that spending cuts decrease government approval, especially during economic downturns, but tax increases’ impact on approval remains minimal. Finally, left- and right-wing governments are equally likely to lose approval after implementing austerity.

Political-economic correlates of environmental policy * *It is gratefully acknowledged that the article processing charge was funded by the University of Freiburg in the funding program Open Access Publishing.

What are the correlates of environmental performance? In particular, does globalization lead to environmental degradation? What is the role of democracy for environmental performance and do left-wing governments really care more about the environment? Using a novel and comprehensive measure of environmental performance, we test these three hypotheses for a panel of 134 countries for the period 2007–2016. Our results are surprising—we find no evidence that democracies are cleaner, left-wing governments perform better than right-wing governments, but centrist governments clearly have the highest environmental performance, and globalization is good for the environment. The positive impact of globalization, however, is driven by social globalization—economic and political globalization do not play a role.

‘The Place of the Transfagbidyke is in the Revolution’

Developed from their public dialogue at the Edinburgh conference ‘Cruising the Seventies: Imagining Queer Europe Then and Now’ (March 2019), this article discusses the afterlives of the 1970s, and another seventies (the 1870s), within the political imaginaries of contemporary struggles in the UK and France. Building on our own engagement and observations as community activists, we discuss the influence of 1970s collectives and communes in present day queer organising; the animation of a trans antifascist poetics, such as the work of Laurel Uziell, in street protests; and the role of queer readings of Paris Communard Louise Michel in the imaginary of members of the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests). We argue that a praxis of ‘queer hirstorical materialism’ that mobilises the queerness and genderqueerness of historical resistance is active in contemporary queer and trans struggles against neoliberal and right-wing governments and neofascists, and more broadly, for revolution.

The effect of the cabinet’s ideological composition on economic growth in the Visegrád countries

ABSTRACT This article examines the relationship between the ideological composition of government cabinets and changes in economic activities in the Central European Region. Often, electoral rhetoric about right-wing governments being financially prudent and left-wing governments being “tax and spend” actors still holds sway in public discussion. However, empirical analysis and academic research have rarely backed such claims. The research hypothesis is that economic activity is mostly independent of who governs, also known as policy convergence. The article aims to test the policy convergence thesis on four Visegrád countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia). The research applied hierarchical models to estimate the effects of the ideological composition of the cabinet on the quarterly change of real GDP while controlling for other relevant predictors. The results confirmed the policy convergence thesis because the effects of various cabinets were neither substantial nor meaningful.

Do Left-wing Governments Decrease Wage Inequality among Civil Servants? Empirical Evidence from the German States

We investigate whether left-wing governments decrease wage inequality among civil servants. The data are based on the salaries of civil servants in the German states. Since a reform in 2006, German state governments are allowed to design salaries of civil servants. We employ encompassing data for pay levels and professions including judges, professors, policemen, and administrators and distinguish between levels of operating experiences. We use six wage inequality measures comparing salaries across pay levels and operating experiences. The results do not suggest that left-wing governments were more active in decreasing wage inequality among civil servants than the center or right-wing governments. Cabinet members are civil servants themselves and decide on their own salaries: government ideology is also not shown to predict the salaries of cabinet members. Because left-wing governments are perceived as taking action against income and wage inequality, future research should employ data from other federal states such as the United States to examine how government ideology influences the salaries of civil servants.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the disaster of the response of a right-wing government in Brazil

The COVID-19 pandemic and the disaster of the response of a right-wing government in Brazil

Challenges to Democracy in the Twenty-first Century: The Current Situation of Brazil — New Variations of the Same Dilemmas

This article discusses the challenges to democracy in the twenty-first century, with emphasis on the situation of Brazil, but within the context of the rise of authoritarian regimes throughout the world. In particular, this article is dedicated to understanding the rise of an extreme right-wing government in Brazil, in the 2018 elections, and its consequences for Brazilian democracy, still young and fragile. Throughout this text, these consequences are analysed historically, economically, politically and socially, in the knowledge that they pose more challenges for the consolidation of Brazilian democracy. In a context of incomplete modernity, the country is living with an excessive number of evils that prevent it from entering a cycle of maturation of its institutions and democracy.

Pragmatic Trans-Border Nationalism: A Comparative Analysis of Poland’s and Hungary’s Policies Towards Kin-Minorities in the Twenty-First Century

This paper outlines the dynamic development of policies in Poland and Hungary towards kin-minorities and their outcomes under the rule of right-wing governments. The main aim is to provide a comparative analysis of kin-state policies targeting co-ethnics living beyond the countries’ borders and point out possible explanations for common and different elements in these two cases. The similarities between Poland’s and Hungary’s policies towards kin-minorities are manifested in an official narrative about one existing nation across borders, and legal measures and political actions aimed at supporting minorities in neighbouring countries. At the same time, there are some important differences concerning, inter alia, ethnic preferential citizenship laws. The Hungarian authorities use preferential naturalisation as a means of strengthening the influence of non-resident ethnic Hungarians as voters in Hungary’s elections. Non-resident Hungarians also play an important role in foreign policy towards neighbouring countries. For policymakers in Poland, ethnic Poles living abroad remain a demographic and economic reservoir. The changes in legal regulations, aimed at encouraging them to settle and work in Poland, are dictated by the constantly high demand for a labour workforce and expected severe demographic decline. Both Hungarian and Polish policies towards kin-minorities are examples of pragmatic trans-border nationalism, which is a concept also developed in the article.

Where feminists dare. The challenge to the hetero-patriarchal and neo-conservative backlash in Italy and Poland

This paper focuses on the public debate in Poland and Italy concerning the right to abortion in the contemporary rise of populist neo-conservative forces in Europe and of a global feminist movement. In both countries, the historical Catholic interference into women's reproductive rights and self-determination has been enforced by the renewed alliance of right-wing governments and pro-life groups to converge into a transnational “anti-gender war”. This represents a real backlash against women’s achievements over the last decades in terms of reproductive and sexual citizenship, which appears to be the battlefield for redefinition of western citizenship in times of global crisis. Although different genealogies, we identified a common framing of neo-conservative discourse, and of feminist claims and practices, as that of feminist strikes and social mutualism. In this perspective, we consider these practices as a normativity from below, arguing that feminist movement is addressing a new paradigm of citizenship.

Counter-reforming through reactionary populism: a failing attempt to restrain a major school admission reform in Chile

ABSTRACT In 2019, the right-wing Government of Chile was expected to implement a substantial reform regarding student assignment to schools that had been passed by the previous administration (the School Inclusion Law). While implementing this policy, in 2019, the former minister of education directed a populist campaign aiming to change policy directions coined the Just Admission Project (JAP). Such policy debates have critical implications regarding the functioning of school choice in Chile. This paper analyzes the JAP as a case study of reactionary neoliberal populism. Framed by such conceptualization of populism, this paper develops a statistical analysis to model the potential influence of the JAP bill on school choice opportunities while comparing with the recently implemented new assignment system from the Inclusion Law (NSAS). We show the results of simulations representing how students would have been assigned to schools for the 2019 school year had the admission procedure been the JAP instead of the NSAS.

Votes and violence: Electoral vote share and international conflict in democratic states

This article argues that the effect of a democratic leader’s electoral margin of victory on their conflict behaviour once in office is highly dependent upon the state’s institutional structure. I show that, uniquely in parliamentary democracies, governments that win a larger share of the vote are significantly less likely to initiate disputes abroad. Such governments entail broad coalitions that, combined with the ever-present possibility of governmental collapse and new elections, require leaders to pursue a more cautious, lowest-common-denominator foreign policy. This effect is significantly stronger for right-wing governments. Conversely, in presidential democracies, I find that electoral vote share has no effect on a leader’s subsequent conflict propensity. Vote shares thus function very differently in parliamentary and presidential systems, with important implications for conflict behaviour abroad.

One ring to rule them all? Locating discourse in Aotearoa New Zealand early childhood education curriculum

Early childhood scholars in New Zealand have long lamented a rising dominance of neoliberalism. Correspondingly they suggest that there has been a lessening of socialist ideals and principles of Te Ao Māori after years of a right-wing government. With the ‘refresh’ of New Zealand’s national early childhood curriculum, Te Whāriki under the Fifth National Government we sought to investigate the location of these discourses in Te Whāriki. Borrowing from Tolkien this paper draws on the metaphor of a ruling, in this case neoliberal, discourse as ‘one ring to rule them all’. We investigate the governmentality of the Fifth National Government through their Four Year Plan 2016–2020 and its permeation of the revised curriculum. Seeking to better understand the location and dominance of neoliberalism within the updated Te Whāriki, the paper analyses both the 1996 curriculum and the 2017 revision for socialist, neoliberal and Te Ao Māori discourses, and their status within the document. A post-structuralist conceptual framework is employed for this study, bringing to bear Michel Foucault and Julia Kristeva in conversation. Analysis across both Te Whāriki and the Four Year Plan found that while neoliberalism was certainly a pervasive discourse, it was, in fact, accompanied by discourses of socialism, neoliberalism and Te Ao Māori. The paper concludes by suggesting that, while neoliberalism may appear to dominate texts, there are complex interanimations between a number of discourses. This multitude potentially ameliorates any one discourse’s domination or, conversely, compromises others. With these findings come important implications concerning the pervasive discourse of neoliberalism and its shaping potential. However, there are also concerns for a new form of colonisation within early childhood curriculum and policy reform.

The politics of memory in post-accord Colombia: interventions from women social leaders and decolonial feminisms

ABSTRACT This article contributes to critical heritage debates through exploring the politics of memory in the Colombian peace process with the left-wing guerrilla group FARC-EP. Following the signature of the Peace Accord in 2016 with the FARC-EP, the current right-wing government’s (2018–2022) denialist politics have resulted in a lack of compliance of the Accord and a ‘battle for memory’. In a context of ongoing conflict and violence, I present the interventions of twelve women social leaders who were interviewed between November 2019 and January 2020. From a decolonial feminist standpoint, I narrate the contestations and nuances of the politics of memory in times of ongoing conflict and entangle these with social leaders’ heterogeneous demands for collective place-based memory, truth and justice. The interventions of social leaders involved in historical memory processes reveal an urgent need to address the instrumentalisation of memory and security concerns due to ongoing violence in post-Accord Colombia. Through centring women social leaders’ interventions and decolonial feminisms this paper seeks to contribute to ongoing national and international debates on the constructions of historical memory in times of ongoing violence and coloniality, which promote place-based, collective, democratic, plural and empathetic memory, heritage and peacemaking.

The concept of solidarity in cohesion policies of the European Union and Hungary

This paper discusses cohesion policies of the EU and Hungary from the conceptual perspective of solidarity. Continuing recent debates positioned at the intersection of solidarity, welfare state and Europeanization, a multi-scalar approach of solidarity is explored. Although the notion of solidarity – i.e. overcoming inequalities across member states and their regions – was an important conceptual building block at the foundation of the EU, the usage of the term has decreased steadily in recent decades’ EU cohesion policies, and more significantly after the 2008 economic crisis. As a parallel trend, the concept’s meaning has shifted from a more general to a reduced one in narrow policy areas. Based on a document analysis, the paper reviews cohesion policy changes of recent EU programming periods and finds that solidarity has lost importance in main planning and legislative documents, a recent shift being the growth policy relaunch of past years. Contrasting these trends with the national scale, a case study of Hungary found that the concept of solidarity was mobilized according to EU-level cohesion policy ideas during the 1990s and early 2000s, but the current right-wing government put forward a new discourse of solidarity which they related with the refugee crisis.