Evangelicals and politicians in Argentina and Brazil: transformations and conservative choices

Abstract

Over the last decade, academic interest in evangelical groups in Latin America has reappeared in light of their growing participation in the political-electoral processes taking place in various countries in the region, generally accompanying political formations that have intensified a shift to the right. In this interest, in their achievements and in their blind spots, it becomes clear to what extent evangelicals pose an intellectual and political challenge for the critical currents in the academic world. In this paper, we propose to investigate the ways in which the relationships between evangelical groups and the political process in Latin America occur. More specifically, what are the relationships between these groups and the authoritarian and conservative shift that occurring in many countries in the region. Starting with a theoretical discussion about evangelism in Latin America, we will attempt to answer this question by considering the case of two different countries. On the one hand, Brazil, in which the participation of evangelicals in politics seems to be inextricably linked with conservative radicalization. On the other Argentina, which appears to be a slightly more open in its historical possibilities, although it is in a process of transformation. Through them we will attempt to demonstrate a single thesis: that within the framework of the political and social processes under way in both countries, the socio-political insertion of evangelicals goes from a relative malleability and contingency in terms of their political destiny to the sedimentation of a series of conditions that transform them either into companions or into catalysts of this authoritarian shift in politics.