Democratic Defection? Authoritarian Populism in Brazil and Hungary

• In Event: Right-Wing Populism and Religion in Latin America

Abstract

The terms “authoritarian” and “populist” have frequently gone hand-in-hand in Latin America, for example, in post-World War II Argentina and Brazil. The wave of democratization in Latin America and Central/Eastern Europe in the 1980s and 1990s triggered optimism that the link between the two terms had ruptured. However, as we approach the third decade of the twenty-first century, both have simultaneously appeared under the auspices of “democratic” regimes in these emerging regions. In this paper, we explore the cases of Brazil and Hungary using tools of comparative political economic analysis. After situating these country cases in the literature on authoritarian populism, past and present, we turn to the comparative empirical data on income distribution, other macroeconomic indicators and institutional performance. Although Hungary has out-performed Brazil on every measure, it is by far the more defective of the two democracies. We argue that answers to this puzzle lay in the realm of institutions, and political institutions in particular. Whereas the Orban government in Hungary has woven itself into the very institutions of the state, the Bolsonaro administration in Brazil has faced considerable institutional pushback from congress and the high courts.

Authors

• Carol Wise, University of Southern California

• Oldrich Krpec, Masaryk University