Skip to content

Brazil

This subproject explored the intersections of populism and conspiracy theories in Brazil. Drawing on extensive field research with Bolsonaro supporters in the aftermath of the 2022 presidential elections, it examined the intricacies of far-right conspiracy theories surrounding the election results. Combining ethnography and anthropological theory with insights from history, political theory, and sociology, this project analysed the radical transformation of Brazil’s contemporary political landscape. Its analysis was both deeply attentive to the uniqueness of the Brazilian case and considered its broader regional and international context, producing a meticulous and comparative examination of the individual and collective shifts that transform politics and society.

Setting the 2018 and 2022 presidential elections against the background of previous articulations of conspiracy rhetoric and manifestations of populism, special attention was given to new forms and strategies of political communication in a ‘post-truth’ era. Some key questions that guided this research were: Has the Bolsonaro government disrupted or eroded from within the democratic processes in the country, as many analysts have suggested, and, if so, how? In what ways did Bolsonaro’s populist project evolve throughout his time in office, and how did conspiracy theories shift in relation to such changes? Does Brazil’s authoritarian history, and Jair Bolsonaro’s own military identity, shape the latter’s populist rhetoric and political project? How did ideological approaches to the establishment of what is, and has been, ‘true’ and ‘false’ inform the government’s actions in relation to a national project?

This project has yielded several publications, including the first monograph to examine conspiracy theories in Brazil from an ethnographic perspective:

Hatzikidi, Katerina. Conservatism and Conspiracism: A Time of Awakening. Routledge, New York, forthcoming summer 2026.

Related PACT Publications

Load More