Far Right in Latin America

This volume argues that the rise of the far right in Latin America represents a reactionary response to the partial success of democratic regimes in incorporating historically marginalized groups. Despite persistent inequalities, Latin American democracies have gradually weakened the dominance of traditional elites over majority–minority relations, creating fertile ground for a backlash against political, social and cultural change. Like their counterparts in Europe and the United States, far-right actors in the region resist adapting to ongoing transformations, instead invoking an idealized national past and mobilizing exclusionary ethnic, cultural, and political appeals to construct a radically homogeneous community. This volume employs a theoretical framework informed by contemporary debates on the far right in Europe and the United States and brings together leading scholars to examine key country cases across Latin America. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser is Professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC). Carlos Meléndez is a researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences (ICS), University of Lisbon. Talita Tanscheit is Professor at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio). Lisa Zanotti is a researcher at the Democracy Institute at Central European University (CEU) in Budapest.