Neo-populism's impact on Latin American democracy

Abstract: This research aims to demonstrate that neo-populism is widening politics while shrinking Latin American democracy. Latin American politics have recently shown that activating traditionally passive or marginalised citizenships through populist strategies and narratives might damage democracy instead. Four Neo-populist incumbent presidents are compared in this study (Manuel Lopez Obrador, Nayib Buekele, Gustavo Petro, and Javier Milei), which demonstrates that despite reaching power through historical voting numbers—suggesting a political activation of long-standing passive citizens—these new groups are mobilised and integrated into local politics through anti-democratic principles. As a result, the increase of politically active citizenship that Neo-populist strategies generate does not necessarily implicate strengthening democratic values.

Author: Alexander Rojas R. (jalexanderrojasr@icloud.com)

Co-author: Julieth Lina Fernanda Zorro (juliethazorro@gmail.com)

Status: Ongoing research