Right-wing, populism and foreign policy in Macri's Argentina (2015–2019) and Bolsonaro's Brazil (2018–2022)

Abstract

This chapter analyses the main foreign policy guidelines of Argentina and Brazil during the administrations of Mauricio Macri (2015–2019) and Jair Bolsonaro (2018–2022), for they constitute two novel experiences – the first right-wing party to come to power in Argentina and the first time a radical right-wing populist figure emerged in Brazil. To this end, the foreign policies ofboth administrations will be studied in relation to (1) the other country under examination; (2) the hegemonic power (the United States); and (3) their most significant integration process, the MERCOSUR. By addressing these three cornerstones of foreign policy we will be able to, on the one hand, shed light on the right-wing political traditions to which each administration adheres, with special focus on the weight of liberal, conservative, radical and reactionary variants, and, on the other, analyse the populist logic of power accumulation in connection with the other country, the US and the MERCOSUR. Our working hypothesis is that the populist ideology and the populistmorphology for power building are effective variables to explain the physiognomy acquired by Argentine and Brazilian foreign policies. And this is despite the increasing returns imposed by (in)formally institutionalized mechanisms that, in the present democratic period, link each country with the other, with the US and within the regional configuration. Under this assumption, it is important, however, to consider that, despite being two right-wing administrations, the orientation of their foreign policy is not necessarily similar, given the influence of the populist component, which has often received little attention or consideration when it comes to understanding the differences between cases of what was referred to as the contemporary right turn in Latin America during the 2010s.