The Radical Right Goes Global (and Local)

Twenty years ago, there were around 80 million people—mostly Italians—living in a democracy where right-wing populists governed nationally. By 2020, that number had grown to 2.5 billion with right-wing populists in power in the largest (India), second largest (United States), fourth largest (Brazil), and sixth largest (Philippines) democracies in the world. As Cecilia Lero writes, “countries in the Global South, and the Philippines and Brazil in particular, have not had recent large waves of immigration or notable demographic shifts and have experienced real income growth across all classes over the past 15 years” (110). Thus, the rise of right-wing populists like Rodrigo Duterte and Jair Bolsonaro in “two countries previously considered relative success stories of democratization in their region” is puzzling and one of the key themes of Right-Wing Populism in Latin American and Beyond , edited by Anthony Pereira. Although half of the contributors are based in Brazil, and nearly all work in the country, the volume is truly comparative, as populism in Columbia, Peru, Italy, India, the Philippines, the United States, and Venezuela is covered in some depth. Substantive themes include right-wing populist responses to COVID—including “medical populism” and the creation of a transnational “Hydroxychloroquine Alliance”—along with standard chapters on theory, political economy, and institutions. It is one of the first books to chart the largest change in right-wing populism over the last decade: its rise to governance in democracies in the Global South.