POPULISM IN BRAZIL (1985-2019): an old concept from a new approach

The concept of populism has been criticized in Brazilian social sciences in the last two decades. In this article, we rescue its importance to answer the following question: how populist are Brazilian presidents? In line with the ideational approach, we define populism as a dispute between two homogeneous and antagonistic groups: a “pure people” and a “corrupt elite”. In this context, we used mixed methods to classify 5,823 official statements by presidents from José Sarney to Jair Bolsonaro (1985/2019). The results point to the identification of three populist presidents in the new republic: Collor, Lula and Bolsonaro. Finally, we discuss the differences between the three and affirm that, in Brazil, populism is not, in itself, a threat to democracy.

Keywords:
populism; Bolsonaro; discourse analysis; ideational approach; nationalism