Brazil Above Everything, God Above Everyone – The Drivers of the Populist Vote in the 2018 Brazilian Elections

Abstract

As right-wing populist politicians have found success across a wide range of countries in recent years, scholars have developed competing theories aimed at explain the (strong) performance of these populists. We test the leading, competing frameworks, one focused on economic explanations and the other emphasizing cultural forces, in the context of the 2018 Brazilian presidential election, which saw the victory of right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro. Using individual-level data, we find that a conservative backlash to liberal values propelled the populist vote in ways that follow (culture-based) theoretical prescriptions, while we find less support for arguments emphasizing economic insecurity. Other types of explanations, notably dissatisfaction with widespread corruption, are also found to matter, though they do not alter the relative importance of cultural and economic forces.