Authoritarian Inheritance, Political Conflict and Conservative Party Institutionalisation: The Cases of Chile and Brazil

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
André Borges
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Party Building ◽  
Party Development ◽  
Political Right

Abstract Party development in post-transition Latin America has often proceeded unevenly, as right-wing elites opted for non-partisan forms of political action and conservative parties remained poorly institutionalised. Recent research has demonstrated that party-building was facilitated where the political Right benefited from valuable political assets – party brand, territorial organisation, sources of funding and clientelistic networks – inherited from authoritarian regimes. This article argues that authoritarian inheritance in isolation is insufficient to foster conservative party institutionalisation. It analyses the trajectories of the major right-wing parties in Brazil and Chile, where former authoritarian incumbents benefited extensively from authoritarian inheritance and yet levels of institutionalisation differed widely across parties. The comparative analysis demonstrates that right-wing parties were most likely to consolidate where, in addition to inheriting valuable resources from the dictatorship, they experienced ideologically driven, violent conflict during their early years.

Other Attempts at Conservative Party-Building in Latin America

2021 ◽  
pp. 188-216
Author(s):  
James Loxton
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
High Profile ◽  
The Third ◽  
Party Building ◽  
Potential Alternative

This chapter examines a number of other high-profile attempts at conservative party-building in Latin America. The first section examines RN in Chile, the PFL/DEM in Brazil, ADN in Bolivia, and Fujimorismo in Peru. Like the UDI and ARENA, all four were authoritarian successor parties; unlike the UDI and ARENA, however, they did not emerge from intense counterrevolutionary struggles and all faced serious problems of cohesion. The second section examines the Party of the U in Colombia, arguing that it was the “exception that proves the rule,” given its ties to violent armed groups. The third section considers four potential alternative paths to conservative party-building: (1) opposition to authoritarian regimes, (2) corporation-based parties, (3) the subnational strategy, and (4) conservative fusion. It discusses the viability of each by looking at several high-profile historical cases, and considers the implications for new conservative parties that cannot yet be definitively scored, notably the PRO in Argentina.

scholarly journals Climate Change Denial among Radical Right-Wing Supporters

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (23) ◽  
pp. 10226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsti M. Jylhä ◽  
Pontus Strimling ◽  
Jens Rydgren
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Sociocultural Attitudes ◽  
Climate Change Denial ◽  
Party Support ◽  
Political Right

The linkage between political right-wing orientation and climate change denial is extensively studied. However, previous research has almost exclusively focused on the mainstream right, which differs from the far right (radical and extreme) in some important domains. Thus, we investigated correlates of climate change denial among supporters of a radical right-wing party (Sweden Democrats, N = 2216), a mainstream right-wing party (the Conservative Party, Moderaterna, N = 634), and a mainstream center-left party (Social Democrats, N = 548) in Sweden. Across the analyses, distrust of public service media (Swedish Television, SVT), socioeconomic right-wing attitudes, and antifeminist attitudes outperformed the effects of anti-immigration attitudes and political distrust in explaining climate change denial, perhaps because of a lesser distinguishing capability of the latter mentioned variables. For example, virtually all Sweden Democrat supporters oppose immigration. Furthermore, the effects of party support, conservative ideologies, and belief in conspiracies were relatively weak, and vanished or substantially weakened in the full models. Our results suggest that socioeconomic attitudes (characteristic for the mainstream right) and exclusionary sociocultural attitudes and institutional distrust (characteristic for the contemporary European radical right) are important predictors of climate change denial, and more important than party support per se.

Conservative Party-Building in Latin America

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Loxton
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
Major Work ◽  
Theoretical Contribution ◽  
Party Building ◽  
Party Cohesion ◽  
Democratic Stability

Where do strong conservative parties come from? While there is a growing scholarly awareness about the importance of such parties for democratic stability, much less is known about their origins. In this groundbreaking book, James Loxton takes up this question by examining new conservative parties formed in Latin America between 1978 and 2010. The most successful cases, he finds, shared a surprising characteristic: they had deep roots in former dictatorships. Through a comparative analysis of failed and successful cases in Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, and Guatemala, Loxton argues that this was not a coincidence. The successes inherited a range of resources from outgoing authoritarian regimes that, paradoxically, gave them an advantage in democratic competition. He also highlights the role of intense counterrevolutionary struggle as a source of party cohesion. In addition to making an empirical contribution to the study of the Latin American right and a theoretical contribution to the study of party-building, Loxton advances our understanding of the worldwide phenomenon of “authoritarian successor parties”—parties that emerge from authoritarian regimes, but that operate after a transition to democracy. A major work, Conservative Party-Building in Latin America will reshape our understanding of politics in contemporary Latin America and the realities of democratic transitions everywhere.

Nazistowski mord na Żydach w prasie polskich komunistów (1942–1944).

2006 ◽  
pp. 54-75
Author(s):  
Klaus Peter Friedrich
Keyword(s):  
Shared Responsibility ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Government ◽  
Post War ◽  
Polish Government ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Right

Facing the decisive struggle between Nazism and Soviet communism for dominance in Europe, in 1942/43 Polish communists sojourning in the USSR espoused anti-German concepts of the political right. Their aim was an ethnic Polish ‘national communism’. Meanwhile, the Polish Workers’ Party in the occupied country advocated a maximum intensification of civilian resistance and partisan struggle. In this context, commentaries on the Nazi judeocide were an important element in their endeavors to influence the prevailing mood in the country: The underground communist press often pointed to the fate of the murdered Jews as a warning in order to make it clear to the Polish population where a deficient lack of resistance could lead. However, an agreed, unconditional Polish and Jewish armed resistance did not come about. At the same time, the communist press constantly expanded its demagogic confrontation with Polish “reactionaries” and accused them of shared responsibility for the Nazi murder of the Jews, while the Polish government (in London) was attacked for its failure. This antagonism was intensified in the fierce dispute between the Polish and Soviet governments after the rift which followed revelations about the Katyn massacre. Now the communist propaganda image of the enemy came to the fore in respect to the government and its representatives in occupied Poland. It viewed the government-in-exile as being allied with the “reactionaries,” indifferent to the murder of the Jews, and thus acting ultimately on behalf of Nazi German policy. The communists denounced the real and supposed antisemitism of their adversaries more and more bluntly. In view of their political isolation, they coupled them together, in an undifferentiated manner, extending from the right-wing radical ONR to the social democrats and the other parties represented in the underground parliament loyal to the London based Polish government. Thereby communist propaganda tried to discredit their opponents and to justify the need for a new start in a post-war Poland whose fate should be shaped by the revolutionary left. They were thus paving the way for the ultimate communist takeover

scholarly journals The radical Right, realism, and the politics of conservatism in postwar international thought

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Jean-François Drolet ◽  
Michael C. Williams
Keyword(s):  
World Politics ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Conceptual Innovation ◽  
Intellectual Origins ◽  
International Thought

Abstract The rise of the radical Right over the last decade has created a situation that demands engagement with the intellectual origins, achievements, and changing worldviews of radical conservative forces. Yet, conservative thought seems to have no distinct place in the theoretical field that has structured debates within the discipline of IR since 1945. This article seeks to explain some of the reasons for this absence. In the first part, we argue that there was in fact a clear strand of radical conservative thought in the early years of the field's development and recover some of these forgotten positions. In the second part, we argue that the near disappearance of those ideas can be traced in part to a process of ‘conceptual innovation’ through which postwar realist thinkers sought to craft a ‘conservative liberalism’ that defined the emerging field's theoretical alternatives in ways that excluded radical right-wing positions. Recovering this history challenges some of IR's most enduring narratives about its development, identity, and commitments – particularly the continuing tendency to find its origins in a defining battle between realism and liberalism. It also draws attention to overlooked resources to reflect upon the challenge of the radical Right in contemporary world politics.

The 1992 Referendum in South Africa

1993 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 339-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette Strauss
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
The State ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
National Party ◽  
White Voters ◽  
The Right

The ruling National Party (N.P.) asked white voters during the 1989 election campaign for a mandate to negotiate with all concerned about a new constitution, an undivided South Africa, one citizenship, equal votes, protection of minorities, and the removal of stumbling blocks such as discrimination against people of colour.1 Although the N.P. achieved a cleat majority – 93 seats against 39 for the Conservative Party (C.P.) and 33 for the Democratic Party (D.P.) – the right-wing opposition made destinct progress by gaining 17 seats. After the C.P had captured a further three from the N.P. in by-elections, including Potchefstroom in February 1992, President F. W. de Klerk announced in Parliament that whites would be asked the following month to vote in a referendum in order to remove any doubts about his mandate. The carefully worded question which the electorate had to answer was as follows: Do you support continuation of the reform process which the State President began on February 2, 1990 and which is aimed at a new constitution through negotiation?

Extreme Political Beliefs Predict Dogmatic Intolerance

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 292-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan-Willem van Prooijen ◽  
André P. M. Krouwel
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Beliefs ◽  
Political Left ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Political Right

Dogmatic intolerance—defined as a tendency to reject, and consider as inferior, any ideological belief that differs from one’s own—is often assumed to be more prominent at the political right than at the political left. In the present study, we make two novel contributions to this perspective. First, we show that dogmatic intolerance is stronger among left- and right-wing extremists than moderates in both the European Union (Study 1) as well as the United States (Study 2). Second, in Study 3, participants were randomly assigned to describe a strong or a weak political belief that they hold. Results revealed that compared to weak beliefs, strong beliefs elicited stronger dogmatic intolerance, which in turn was associated with willingness to protest, denial of free speech, and support for antisocial behavior. We conclude that independent of content, extreme political beliefs predict dogmatic intolerance.

scholarly journals CONSERVATIVE PARTY AND THE PROBLEMS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE IN THE EARLY YEARS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR (on the pages of “Diary of a diplomat” by I. M. Maisky)

2016 ◽  
pp. 32-37
Author(s):  
E. V. Khakhalkina
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Early Years ◽  
World War ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Second World

The “Diary” of the Soviet diplomat I. M. Maisky, who worked in London for more than ten years first as a messenger, then as the Soviet ambassador to the UK, is one of the valuable sources for the interwar period and the Second World War. The “Diary” contains records of Maisky’s conversations with the leading British politicians and public figures and his own thoughts on a wide range of issues, including the problems of the British Empire. The author of the paper analyzes the views of the Tories on the prospects for the British Empire and the Commonwealth of the postwar period and reveals the plans for the reconstruction of the Empire and its transformation while maintaining the dominant position of Britain in the format of a new relationship with the dominions and colonies. The paper shows that within the British political establishment there was no consensus on the future of the empire and, as the materials of the “Diary of diplomat” evidence, the problem of the evolution of the Empire had a close relationship with other areas of foreign and domestic policy.

Environmental Protection under Authoritarian Regimes in Cold War Chile and Hungary

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 310-334
Author(s):  
Viktor Pál ◽  
Leonardo Valenzuela Perez
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Political Left ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Democratic Systems ◽  
Environmental Goals ◽  
Hungarian State ◽  
The Right ◽  
State Socialist

Authoritarian regimes are often seen to be hostile toward the environment, albeit there is a growing body of literature suggesting a more nuanced image when it comes to authoritarian governments and the environment. However, several aspects of human-nature relationship need further clarification in non-democratic systems, both on the political left and right. In this article we aim to address that challenge by analysing Cold War economic and environmental goals and responses of the right-wing military junta in Chile under Pinochet and the Hungarian state-socialist, USSR-satellite regime under Kádár. By analysing two radically different political and economic approaches to economic catchup, while mitigating environmental costs on the way, this study aims to understand better the ecological motivations in authoritarian regimes operating diverse political and economic agendas.

Remains of Socialism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maya Nadkarni
Keyword(s):  
Early Years ◽  
State Socialism ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Illiberal Democracy ◽  
The Future ◽  
Physical Objects

This book investigates the changing fates of the socialist past in postsocialist Hungary. The book introduces the concept of “remains”—both physical objects and cultural remainders—to analyze all that Hungarians sought to leave behind after the end of state socialism. Spanning more than two decades of postsocialist transformation, the book follows Hungary from the optimism of the early years of transition to its recent right-wing turn toward illiberal democracy. The book analyzes remains that range from exiled statues of Lenin to the socialist-era “Bambi” soda, and from discredited official histories to the scandalous secrets of the communist regime's informers. It demonstrates that these remains were far more than simply the leftovers of an unwanted past. Ultimately, the struggles to define remains of socialism and settle their fates would represent attempts to determine the future—and to mourn futures that never materialized.

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