What Is the Grassroots Right?

Scholars generally take one of two approaches to defining this object of study, emphasizing either the actors (the who), or their issues (the what). In the former category, for instance, is Timothy Power’s Reference Power2000 volume on The Political Right in Postauthoritarian Brazil, which defines the right as an “exceedingly large and diverse” set of actors, including “the armed forces, large- and medium-sized landowners, and elements of the industrial bourgeoisie, as well as smaller segments of the Catholic hierarchy, the middle classes, and the media,” plus Brazil’s authoritarian successor parties (36–37). Following Power, as well as Edward Gibson (Reference Gibson1996) and Kevin Middlebrook (Reference Middlebrook2000), James Bowen identifies the right by its “core constituencies”: “the upper economic and social strata of society,” termed “elites” (Reference Bowen2011, 105–6). Yet in a study of the grassroots, such a definition is unsatisfying; it suggests that nonelites cannot mobilize behind rightist politics. To be sure, Bowen (Reference Bowen2011, 5–6) acknowledges that populist politicians can mobilize ordinary citizens to support the right, yet this approach implies an assumption of false consciousness within the “grassroots right” that we do not believe is justified ex ante.

Instead, we focus on the what—the issues and ideologies that rightists champion. This approach avoids oversimplifying the interests of entire social groups or classes, instead inquiring into what political actors themselves want. However, it poses a different challenge: to find the thread tying together the extraordinarily diverse issues that rightists champion, which include everything from opposing citizen access to abortion to supporting citizen access to guns. What principle unifies those demands?

In one attempt to answer that question, Luna and Rovira Kaltwasser (Reference Luna and Cristóbal2014a, 4) put forth a clear, flexible, and expansive definition of the right as “a political position distinguished by the belief that the main inequalities between people are natural and outside the purview of the state.” The strength of this definition is its capacity to describe neatly the right’s stances on wide-ranging economic and racial issues—areas where the left historically has championed governmental action to redress inequalities. Yet this definition is less apt for describing rightist versus leftist stances on issues such as gay rights and abortion, for which contemporary rightists may actually advocate government policy to enforce inequality or to prevent access to services that could be provided via markets, such as abortion or prostitution. Given the centrality of sexuality politics for Latin America’s “neoconservatives” or “New Right,” we need a definition that adequately incorporates such stances (Côrrea et al. Reference Côrrea, Petchesky and Parker2008; Cowan Reference Cowan2014; Lacerda Reference Lacerda2019; Vaggione and Machado Reference Vaggione2020).

Therefore, we define the right as a diverse set of individuals and organizations aiming to maintain societal hierarchies that are perceived as traditional or natural. This definition differs from that of Luna and Rovira Kaltwasser (Reference Luna and Cristóbal2014a) in that it centers rightists’ proactive defense of hierarchies rather than their opposition to government action. Such hierarchies might include, for instance, patriarchy, the economic dominance of large businesses or landowners, or the subordination of LGBTQ+ individuals or Black and Indigenous Latin Americans.

At the same time, as Eaton (Reference Eaton2014) notes, Latin America’s right is no longer invested simply in championing discrete issues. Instead, the right has begun “engaging in deeper and ongoing projects of identify formation,” deploying “discursive and rhetorical practices that seek to transform political identities” (2014, 87). Although Eaton focuses on sectoral and territorial identities, by 2021 the rightist project of identity formation has deepened and politicized identities ranging from religious to nationalist to antipartisan. Our definition of the right highlights its potential to advance a transformative agenda to entrench inequalities, which conceives of rightists as the true defenders of the traditional moral order.

When discussing the grassroots right, we refer to the citizens and civil society groups that engage in activism to support rightist issues and identities.^{Footnote 1} Scholarship on the Latin American right has historically centered political elites, including politicians and governmental actors such as the military (Luna and Rovira Kaltwasser Reference Luna and Cristóbal2014a; Power Reference Power2000). However, Latin America’s rightward turn in the 2010s was particularly striking among citizens. While rightists of various stripes captured the presidency in a number of countries—from Brazil’s far-rightist Jair Bolsonaro to Chile’s technocratic center-rightist Sebastián Piñera—nearly every country in the region witnessed prominent movements advocating for conservative positions on issues such as sexuality politics. The emergence of these movements signals that grassroots mobilization can come from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds—not just the subaltern groups traditionally associated with leftist social movements.

This is not to say that current rightist movements are entirely novel in Latin America. Prominent right-leaning social movements of the twentieth century included conservative women’s movements (Baldez Reference Baldez2002) and militarized groups, such as armed landowners in Brazil (González and Kampwirth Reference González and Kampwirth2001; Payne Reference Payne2000). Still, the grassroots right has flourished since the turn of the millennium, in both volume of mobilization and societal prominence.

We distinguish Latin America’s grassroots right from two related concepts. First, it is not simply a mass public following elite direction; rightist citizens are independent actors, whose views and behavior are not reducible to their relationship with politicians. Thus, the grassroots right extends beyond—but interacts with— rightist party organizations and electoral activism. Likewise, the grassroots right cannot be reduced to a top-down, “AstroTurf’ dynamic, with participation simply manufactured by elites. Second, Latin America’s grassroots right often takes the form of social movements, yet it may also defy traditional understandings of movements. Its organizational forms range from formal or informal social movements to religious congregations and denominations, or sporadic mobilization in contentious action among people who do not know each other and are linked only through social media, as emphasized in the article in this volume by Dias, von Bülow, and Gobbi, as well as the article by Gold and Peña.

In practice, what does Latin America’s grassroots right look like? Perhaps the single set of issues distinguishing the right today from that in previous periods is the centrality of sexuality politics; for instance, opposition to abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, and school-based sexual education (Biroli and Caminotti Reference Biroli and Caminotti2020; Pérez Betancur and Rocha-Carpiuc Reference Pérez Betancur and Rocha-Carpiuc2020; Vaggione and Machado 2020; Zaremberg Reference Zaremberg2020). In this section, for instance, Corredor and Reuterswärd describe movements opposing “gender equality” in Colombia and abortion access in Mexico, respectively. As Corredor (Reference Corredor2019; this issue) argues, opposition to what rightists call “gender ideology” has emerged as a powerful counterframe that enables Latin America’s grassroots right to contest the sexual empowerment of lower-status groups. This counterframe derailed public school sexual education initiatives in countries such as Brazil and Peru (Payne and de Souza Santos Reference Payne and Andreza2020; Rousseau Reference Rousseau2020) and has even been harnessed to attack seemingly unrelated projects, such as Colombia’s peace process (Corredor this issue). One reason sexuality politics has become a magnetic core for the right is that these issues have unique power to mobilize religious conservatives—both Catholics and the growing body of conservative Evangelicals (Smith Reference Smith2019a; Smith and Boas Reference Smith and Taylor2020).

While no topic has aroused more attention than sexuality politics, the grassroots right mobilizes around many other issues. Most classically, it may oppose social policies benefiting marginalized groups, such as conditional cash transfers and affirmative action in Brazil (e.g., Côrrea Reference Côrrea2015; Feres Júnior and Toste Daflon Reference Feres Júnior and Daflon2015). Relatedly, the regional autonomy movement in Santa Cruz, Bolivia arose in reaction against the Evo Morales administration’s efforts to empower Indigenous Bolivians and redistribute resources across regions (Bowen Reference Bowen2014; Eaton Reference Eaton2007). Similarly, Argentina’s agricultural producers revolted against an export tax hike to fund social programs during the administration of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (Fairfield Reference Fairfield2011). In all these cases, rightist civil society actors mobilized to defend in-group economic interests, opposing redistributive policies under leftist administrations.

Another area of rightist mobilization relates to security and crime, when citizens organize to support mano dura or “tough on crime” policies. Examples include mobilization to demand repressive policing of marginalized groups in São Paulo (González and Mayka Reference González and Lindsayn.d.), movements for gun rights in Brazil (Bob Reference Bob2012, chap. 6), and organized opposition to police reform in Argentina (Eaton Reference Eaton2008, 22–25). Mobilization also has taken a distinctively international dimension as rightists oppose the specter of creeping communism and Chavismo, with Cuba and Venezuela serving as effective bogeymen in arousing opposition throughout the region.

Because the right’s objectives are socially constructed and contextual, its salient issues and identities vary across space and time. For instance, the European right tends to target immigrants to a greater extent than the Latin American right, which instead focuses on dark-skinned and lower-class internal enemies, such as bandidos in slums. Thus the constellation of issues and identities that characterizes the grassroots right in twenty-first-century Latin America is not definitional to the right. Instead, rightist activists can be identified via their general opposition to state intervention to dismantle existing inequalities and their support for a “traditional” social order.

It is important to distinguish the rise of the grassroots right from two other recent trends in Latin America: autocratization and populism. In some cases, these three trends go together: most notably in the Brazilian movement leading to the downfall of Dilma Rousseff and the rise of Jair Bolsonaro (Dias et al. this volume; Gold and Peña this volume; Cohen et al. Reference Cohen, Amy Erica, Moseley and MatthewForthcoming; Layton et al. Reference Layton, Smith, Moseley and Cohen2021). Grassroots right mobilization also coincided with authoritarianism in the 2019 movement overturning Evo Morales’s disputed electoral victory, which led to the one- year right-wing rule of Jeanine Áñez in Bolivia. Nevertheless, support for authoritarianism and populism are uncorrelated with rightism; in recent years, right-wing movements have mobilized to support liberal democracy in Venezuela and elsewhere.^{Footnote 2} The grassroots right might even sometimes be a stabilizing, democratizing force, giving rightist actors a stake in the democratic system, as well as connecting them to partisan elites (Boas and Smith Reference Boas and Amy2019; Boas Reference Boas, Kapiszewski, Levitsky and Yashar2021; Smith Reference Smith2019a).

How Does the Grassroots Right Mobilize?

The grassroots right adopts various organizational forms, ranging from hierarchical institutional structures to loose, informal networks. For instance, the largest civil society organization in the world, the Catholic Church, has deployed its formidable networks and ideological resources to advocate rightist causes, including opposition to abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, as Reuterswärd explains in this issue.^{Footnote 3}

Likewise, rapidly growing Evangelical churches have served as key nodes for right-wing activism. The grassroots right also may take the form of economic associations (Fairfield Reference Fairfield2011); social movements, such as the anti–sex education movement Con Mis Hijos No Te Metas (Don’t Mess with My Children) in Peru (Boas Reference Boasn.d.; Rousseau Reference Rousseau2020); or loose coalitions organized among regional movements in Bolivia (Eaton Reference Eaton2007). Moreover, in this issue, both the articles by Dias, von Bülow, and Gobbi and by Gold and Peña describe how social media–based (even anonymous) networks framed issues and drove large cycles of protest, despite minimal formal organization. Right-wing individuals have also mobilized through participatory institutions, instead of forming organizations or movements, to promote police repression of marginalized groups in Brazil (González and Mayka Reference González and Lindsayn.d.). Often, activists coordinate through what Jessica Rich (Reference Rich2020) calls “federative coalitions,” uniting diverse groups into a hierarchical structure for targeted campaigns while maintaining the flexibility of networks.

What Causes the Grassroots Right?

What has led to the present surge of grassroots mobilization on the right? We can immediately dismiss one possibility: the hypothesis that Latin American citizens are becoming more conservative. Analyzing AmericasBarometer data on citizens’ selfplacement on a 1–10 ideological scale, where 1 indicates far left and 10 indicates far right, we see little movement in ideological self-placement in the aggregate between 2006 and 2019, across the region as a whole. In most waves, a bit over 10 percent of citizens place themselves at 10 on the scale (indicating association with the far right), and a bit more than one-third choose a position from 6 to 10.^{Footnote 5} Similarly, Abreu Maia et al. (Reference Abreu2020) find no evidence that either progressive policies or conservative social movement backlash has led to growing conservatism on sexuality politics issues among Latin Americans, on net. What, then, might drive increasing mobilization? In the paragraphs that follow, we sketch a series of speculative hypotheses.

First, scholars point to long-term changes in the political opportunity structure that encourage grassroots mobilization on the right. Democratization, growing state capacity, and changing international norms have made recourse to military intervention and armed rebellion increasingly unattractive for societal elites dissatisfied with democratically elected leaders (Linz and Stepan Reference Linz and Alfred1996; Loxton Reference Loxton2014; Power Reference Power2000). Moreover, the secular decline of clientelism and patronage politics has restricted another channel for upper-class influence on politics (Eaton Reference Eaton2014, 76; Weitz-Shapiro Reference Weitz-Shapiro2014). Even behind-the-scenes bureaucratic influence may be increasingly foreclosed to rightist societal elites, as centrist and leftist administrations have bolstered authority and autonomy within the bureaucracy (Abers Reference Abers2019; Rich et al. Reference Rich2019, 4–5; Rich Reference Rich2019). Thus, the rise of the grassroots right might indicate the maturation of Latin American democracies, in which rightist groups must compete for policy influence on relatively even footing with other civil society actors. From this perspective, it is notable that even movements with close ties to elites—such as the Mexican prochoice movements analyzed by Reuterswärd in this issue—operate through protest and lobbying instead of just relying on secret back channels.

A second hypothesis highlights the rise of Evangelical Christianity in most Latin American countries over the past several decades (Boas and Smith Reference Boas, Amy, Ryan, Matthew and Zechmeister2015; Chesnut Reference Chesnut2003; Pew Research Center 2014). Both Evangelicalism and Catholicism are highly pluralistic traditions, encompassing actors ranging from the far right to the far left; neither has been associated with uniformly rightist voting and activism in Latin America Boas and Smith (Reference Boas, Amy, Ryan, Matthew and Zechmeister2015). Nevertheless, Evangelical politics may lean to the right of Catholic politics in the current era. Despite substantial moderation since the 1980s, Catholic progressive groups with roots in liberation theology organizing of the 1960s and 1970s remain active even today. By contrast, such movements were always weaker in Evangelicalism (Boas Reference Boasn.d.; Mainwaring and Wilde Reference Mainwaring and Wilde1989). In addition, although Latin America’s lay Evangelicals are centrists or even slightly left of Catholics on issues such as the environment, crime, and economics, they are distinctly conservative on sexuality politics—precisely the bundle of issues that has become most salient for the contemporary grassroots right (Smith and Boas Reference Smith and Robin2020; Smith and Veldman 2020).

The rise of Evangelical Christianity has bolstered new mobilizing structures on the right. Evangelical converts attend church more frequently than they did as Catholics; one recent study conservatively estimated that Evangelicals and Pentecostals spend at least twice as many hours in church per year as do Catholics (Smith Reference Smith and Ames2019b). Members of Evangelical and Pentecostal churches may be particularly prone to adopt shared political views, due to regular socialization, shared identities, and the salience of moralistic frames (Smith Reference Smith2019a). Hence, Latin America’s changing religious landscape is likely to be associated with increased exposure to religious messages with political import. Evangelical churches offer a promising mobilizing structure to channel these new grievances into political participation, as seen in Corredor’s article in this issue on right-wing activism against the 2016 Colombian peace deal.

A third set of hypotheses points to the emergence of new grievances. It is not a coincidence that the grassroots right arose in the wake of Latin America’s Pink Tide of the first decade of the 2000s. As left-wing administrations engaged in ambitious programs for redistribution and reducing economic and ethnic and racial inequality, privileged sectors had new reasons to feel threatened (Eaton Reference Eaton2007; Fairfield Reference Fairfield2011). Moreover, the tragically poor performance of Venezuelan Chavismo and a more mundane frustration with corruption and economic stagnation in countries such as Argentina and Brazil triggered backlash that crossed class lines. Consequently, grassroots right protests attracted a wide range of participants, united by opposition to the policies and records of leftist administrations (Alonso and Mische Reference Alonso and Ann2017, 6–7; Eaton Reference Eaton2007, 85; Tatagiba and Galvão Reference Tatagiba and Andreia2019, 79–85). Although protests initially targeted isolated grievances, they coalesced into larger movements that generated antileftist identities (Alonso and Mische Reference Alonso and Ann2017; Samuels and Zucco Reference Samuels2018; Dias et al. this issue). These new antileft identities appear to be particularly powerful among popular sector voters who had, ironically, risen out of poverty under left-leaning governments (Junge Reference Junge2019; Naím Reference Naím2015; Pinheiro-Machado and Mury Scalco Reference Pinheiro-Machado and Lucia2020).

One particular set of grievances bears special mention: anxiety over changes in sexuality politics. Although the latter half of the twentieth century brought major changes in women’s rights and family structures, the first decades of the twenty-first century ushered in previously unimaginable policy changes on abortion and same- sex marriage, as well as dramatic shifts in understandings of gender and gender norms (Abreu Maia et al. Reference Abreu2020; Côrrea et al. Reference Côrrea, Petchesky and Parker2008; Corredor Reference Corredor2019).

Although there is little evidence that these changes triggered a conservative backlash in public opinion in society as a whole (Abreu Maia et al. Reference Abreu2020), they did raise the salience of such issues for social conservatives. In a new paper, Smith and Boas (Reference Smith and Taylor2020) show that when issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion rise in the news, religious conservatives—including Catholics, but especially Evangelicals— increasingly translate their conservative views into political behavior. As Reuterswärd (this issue) shows, in the Mexican state of Yucatán, anxieties about the advances made by LGBTQ+ movements triggered right-wing mobilization to expand restrictions on sexuality more broadly, including a state constitutional ban on abortion. While rightwing movements have organized in response to shifts in sexuality, they are not advocating a return to the status quo, but instead a transformed gender order that imposes new regulations on sex and sexuality (Corredor this issue).

Fourth, the rise of social media has served as a valuable resource that enables flexible and adaptable organizational forms (Castells Reference Castells2012; Rich Reference Rich2020, 432) and can translate grievances into collective action through framing (Dias et al. this issue). Social media may be particularly suited for rightist mobilization. As Gold and Peña argue in this issue, Latin America’s leftist parties were historically more effective than rightist parties in cultivating organizational linkages with civil society. However, social media may invert that scenario, advantaging groups with deep pockets or wealthy friends who can support costs that range from “boosting” posts to funding technological access and know-how (Schradie Reference Schradie2019). Indeed, Gold and Peña (this issue) show that right-wing parties have formed novel forms of linkages with digital activist groups. Moreover, Dias, von Bülow, and Gobbi argue in this issue that the “reductionism” and “antagonism” of right-wing populist messages makes them particularly effective in social media.

Fifth, the twenty-first century has brought new patterns of diffusion across borders. Growing ties among the global right wing have contributed to diffusion processes through transnational networks. One understudied topic is the mobilization of opposition to Chavismo as an organizing tool across borders, acting in parallel to the transnational coordination among leaders of the Bolivarian left. Moreover, we have also seen the emergence of transnational advocacy networks on rightist issues, including gun rights and opposition to abortion and LGBTQ+ rights (Bob Reference Bob2012).

Additional studies are needed to examine empirically the relative importance of these explanations for the rise of the grassroots right as a whole or in particular cases. Moreover, it is worth noting that the literature implicitly posits that the grassroots right must be composed of different segments of society, including at a minimum economic elites, religious conservatives, and members of the popular sectors. Future research should investigate how these very different social segments have constructed networks and engaged in collective action and how they navigate the challenges of sustaining mobilization with such a heterogenous coalition. Yet another line of inquiry that so far remains underexplored, with the exception of important work by Clifford Bob (Reference Bob2012), relates to the international right-leaning networks—both “North-South” and within Latin America—that link the grassroots right across the region.

From a more theoretical perspective, further questions remain. One relates to the circumstances under which progressive or left-wing organizing thrives in both churches and social media. While there does appear to be an elective affinity between these mobilizing platforms and rightist issues and identities, a long history of leftist organizing in both churches and social media leaves no doubt that these platforms are far from hegemonic for the right. Theoretically informed explanations of the multivalent nature of these organizing platforms in Latin America could provide an important contribution to the literature.

What is the Impact of the Grassroots Right?

The grassroots right has had varying impacts on a range of outcomes related to public policy and democracy, including legislation, social citizenship rights, political parties and party linkages, and polarization. The grassroots right’s track record on legislation related to public policy has been mixed so far, often disappointing to newly mobilized rightist citizens and civil society groups.^{Footnote 6} For instance, following the legalization of abortion in Mexico City, anti-abortion movements were able in short order to get anti-abortion constitutional amendments passed in 19 (out of 32) state constitutions in Mexico—but failed to do so in other states (Reuterswärd this issue; Zaremberg Reference Zaremberg2020). In Colombia, right-wing activists mobilized fears over gender ideology to defeat a popular referendum to approve a peace deal with the FARC guerrilla group. Yet this movement failed to stop the deal in Congress or even to significantly change the gender-sensitive language in the peace plan (Corredor this issue). Most recently, pro-choice activists outmaneuvered the anti-abortion movement in Argentina when abortion at up to 14 weeks of pregnancy was legalized.

It is impossible to explain the success or failure of the grassroots right without also considering the strategies, resources, and frames deployed by progressive movements. In the case of the Argentine abortion legalization, for instance, the failure of the grassroots right was the flip side of the success of feminist activists. Feminist movements’ use of frames related to public health and social justice for poor women proved to be more effective than pro-life narratives about the human rights of the unborn (Daby and Moseley Reference Daby and Mason2021; Morgan Reference Morgan2014). Just as the policy successes of leftwing governments may restrict the policy alternatives of subsequent rightist leaders (Niedzwiecki and Pribble Reference Niedzwiecki and Jennifer2017), the actions taken by left-wing movements may constrain the strategies and impact of movements on the right. We need more empirically careful and theoretically informed case studies to begin to draw general conclusions about the relative strengths of the grassroots right and progressive groups in such battles and how the actions of each side change the political calculus of the other. One promising case study may be Chile’s constitutional rewriting process, which will certainly draw both rightist and leftist mobilizing.

Additional work is needed to understand how allies inside the state shape the influence of right-wing groups. As the 2019 special issue of this journal on the “politics of participation in Latin America” (Rich et al. Reference Rich2019) emphasizes, allies within the bureaucracy and judiciary might amplify the policy impact of civil society groups. These allies may support the aims of the grassroots right, as seen in Corredor’s analysis of the peace process in Colombia. Likewise, actors such as medical professionals, who are tasked with implementing policies such as abortion, can coordinate with rightwing movements to block progressive changes (Morgan Reference Morgan2014; Pérez Betancur and Rocha-Carpiuc Reference Pérez Betancur and Rocha-Carpiuc2020). Yet progressive bureaucrats can also block the social change envisioned by the grassroots right (Abers Reference Abers2019). In other words, even if the grassroots right succeeds in electing its allies, state actors may resist conservative retrenchment. Further theoretical and empirical work remains for scholars to disentangle the complex interactions within the state that shape the impact of the grassroots right in both advocating legislative change and influencing policy implementation.

Turning from discrete policy changes to an overall view, how has the grassroots right impacted Latin American democracy? We would argue that the grassroots right has enhanced democratic quality in some instances by providing representation and opportunities for participation to groups that historically had been excluded, such as Evangelicals (Boas Reference Boas, Kapiszewski, Levitsky and Yashar2021; Boas and Smith Reference Boas and Amy2019; Smith Reference Smith2019a). This position is not dissimilar to an older argument that rightist participation in democratic politics forestalled military coups and armed right-wing subversive activities by giving those on the right a stake in the democratic system (Loxton Reference Loxton2014; Payne Reference Payne2000; Gibson Reference Gibson1996). In addition, in countries led by the “radical” or Bolivarian left, right-wing activists have, at times, mobilized to support liberal democratic institutions and checks and balances.

Yet the grassroots right also has nonetheless potentially pernicious effects on democracy, particularly when it seeks to restrict the rights of marginalized groups. Indeed, Pentecostal and Evangelical groups have been the most prominent opponents of LGBTQ+ rights and inclusion in Latin America (Corrales Reference Corrales2017). Rightwing activists have demanded repressive policing that violates the civil liberties and procedural rights of marginalized communities, even rejecting the very notion that these groups should have citizenship rights (González and Mayka Reference González and Lindsayn.d.). In some countries of the region, grassroots right mobilization has accompanied societal trends toward an increasingly Manichean polarization. Yet leftists have also abetted polarization in Latin America, which is why we argue that both populism and authoritarianism are orthogonal to left-right divides in Latin America. Overall, we see these trends toward increasing polarization, populism, and illiberalism as worrisome for the long-term stability of Latin American democracy.

These tensions pose an urgent research agenda for future scholars. What circumstances encourage the representation of diverse ideological perspectives without exacerbating populism, polarization, and illiberalism? Under what circumstances and in what contexts can grassroots right mobilization be a force for stability and inclusion without sacrificing the rights of other groups? One line of investigation that may be promising focuses on the potential of “rights” frames for bridging divides. In the US context, for instance, Lewis (Reference Lewis2017) shows that Evangelicals’ strategic adoption of rights-based framing in anti-abortion mobilization has had positive downstream consequences for democracy. Such frames have warmed Evangelicals’ attitudes toward rights and democracy themselves, and can encourage US Evangelicals to become more tolerant of groups they oppose (Lewis Reference Lewis2017). Future work should investigate the roles of frames and political context in inclusion and moderation of the grassroots right in Latin America.

Overview of Articles in this Special Section

The four articles review recent developments in mobilization by the grassroots right, examining a range of countries (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico) and issues (LGBTQ+ rights, abortion, peace processes, corruption, removing elected officials from office). They highlight innovations in strategies, tactics, and frames and generate new hypotheses about the causes and consequences of the grassroots right in Latin America.

The article by Camilla Reuterswärd explores the impact of right-wing movements through a comparison of struggles over abortion in two Mexican states. In Yucatán, pro-life movements succeeded in getting a restrictive anti-abortion law passed, while a comparable initiative failed in Hidalgo. Both pro-life movements framed their demands in biological and bioethics terms while cloaking the role of the Catholic Church. To explain their varied success, Reuterswärd points to movement resources, leveraged through tight networks between religious organizations, economic elites, and politicians. The hegemonic Yucatán Catholic Church mobilized moral and financial resources to pressure politicians to pursue anti-abortion reform. Conversely, the church in Hidalgo lacked such ties, creating an opening for feminist groups’ demands. Reuterswärd signals the roles of networks, material resources, and frames in explaining the impact of the grassroots right.

The article by Elizabeth Corredor also examines the policy impact of the grassroots right, this time in opposition to Colombia’s 2016 peace agreement. Opponents of “gender ideology” objected to an intersectional approach used in the peace deal that recognized diverse sexual identities and promoted gender equality. Antigender activists creatively framed their opposition using human rights discourses, portraying a gender-sensitive approach as an assault on freedom of religion, the right to life, the right to marriage and a family, and the right to dignity. Using careful content analysis, however, Corredor demonstrates that anti-gender activists ultimately failed to strike references to gender sensitivity from the final document; nor could they stop its legislative passage, despite close ties to prominent politicians. One implication is that backlash against progressive causes does not necessarily succeed but can spark new dynamics of contention as movements and countermovements respond to each other.

Tayrine Dias, Marisa von Bülow, and Danniel Gobbi illustrate framing processes via an impressive content analysis of thousands of Facebook posts made by five right-wing groups during the 2017 campaign to impeach Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff. They show that despite marked ideological differences, these five groups coordinated messages that cast blame for endemic corruption on the ruling Workers’ Party and framed impeachment as the necessary corrective. This article highlights the crucial role of social media in creating a shared interpretation of grievances among right-wing individuals who may share few offline network ties and hold diverse political views.

In their study, Tomás Gold and Alejandro Peña further probe the power of social media in right-wing activism, comparing protest cycles in Argentina (2012– 13) and Brazil (2013–16). Gold and Peña argue that right-wing parties have developed novel forms of linkages with voters by aligning with digital activist groups, leading those parties to embrace protest and other forms of contentious politics that were historically the purview of leftist and other labor-based parties. Although these linkage strategies enabled right-wing parties to rise to power in both countries, digital activists maintained an important role under rightist rule in Brazil while being displaced in Argentina. This divergence raises important questions about how digital linkage strategies endure over time and their potential to yield institutional influence for the grassroots right.

Together, the four essays shed new light on the role of the grassroots right in politics and raise important questions for further study. Right-wing activists have emerged as central figures in contemporary struggles over public policy, human rights, and partisan politics. We hope this special section serves as a call for future research that helps make sense of the crucial role of the grassroots right in Latin American democracies.