It's my party and I'll lie if i want to: elite ideological obfuscation in post-authoritarian settings
This paper examines the origins and evolution of the direita envergonhada (“embarrassed right”) phenomenon, a pattern of ideological obfuscation by right-of-center politicians that was originally identified and documented in post-authoritarian Brazil. Conservative politicians refused to identify the...
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| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
SAGE Publications
2024
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| Summary: | This paper examines the origins and evolution of the direita envergonhada (“embarrassed right”) phenomenon, a pattern of ideological obfuscation by right-of-center
politicians that was originally identified and documented in post-authoritarian Brazil.
Conservative politicians refused to identify themselves as right-wing, defining themselves instead as centrists and placing themselves ideologically to the left of their own
political parties. We find that this phenomenon is not restricted to Brazil, but is
widespread across Latin America’s Third Wave of democratization. We also find that
politicians personally connected to the defunct authoritarian regime were more likely
to engage in obfuscation and that, contrary to previous hypotheses, obfuscation has
faded in recent times. |
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