The advance of the extreme right in Latin America and Europe

Abstract

The advance of the extreme right is a complex global phenomenon, which manifests itself in different regions of the world in different degrees and intensities. A disturbing development because it is interpreted as a weakening of democracy and the threat of a regression of the social gains achieved for a long time. A reactionary response to the concept of progress that until yesterday seemed hegemonic. Within the generalized context of this advance in Europe, Latin America and the world, we came across the recent surprises of the cases of Brazil and Spain. In Brazil, the Liberal Social Party (PSL), a party so far insignificant, wins the Presidential Elections in 2018 with broad electoral support, with an extremist, anti-communist and ultra-conservative discourse, before the stupefaction of the international community and the perplexity of not Few Brazilians. In Spain, even reaching much less support under the acronym of VOX, overnight and starting almost from scratch, get to have a presence in 2019 in all kinds of organs of political representation; Congress of the Deputies, European Parliament, Autonomous Communities, City councils ... being also its necessary presence to form governments. And all this through an electoral discourse no less provocative than that of Jair Bolsonaro, and before the incredulity of many Spaniards. What is happening so that the suffrages bring these overturns? Where do these supports come from? Towards what new political and social scenarios are we heading? The proposed monographic tries to answer these big questions, from the different analytical perspectives, with special attention to the cases of Spain and Brazil, but without losing sight of the perspective of its geopolitical enclaves, that is, Latin America and the European Union , for understanding that these particular cases, with their specificities, are immersed in more general processes that are taking place both in Europe and in Latin America as well as in the globalized world in general.