Global Discourse • vol 14 • no 4 • 502–522 • © Authors 2024

Online ISSN 2043-7897 • https://doi.org/10.1332/20437897Y2024D000000041

Accepted for publication 31 October 2024 • First published online 02 December 2024

Special Issue: Regional Integration in Latin America: Critical Perspectives

in the Time of Populism: Part 1

RESEARCH ARTICLE

The far right, populism, and the contestation of

regionalism in South America: Bolsonaro
and Milei
José Antonio Sanahuja , [email protected]
Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain

Diego Hernández Nilson , [email protected]

Universidad de la Republica Uruguay, Uruguay

Camilo López Burian , [email protected]

Universidad de la República, Uruguay

The contestation of multilateralism and international norms is a constitutive element of the

new neopatriot far right. On a global scale, this adopts sovereigntist, nationalist, and anti-
globalist perspectives, which in many cases are expressed through populist discourses that
establish an antagonism between the “people” and elites (global, foreign, or even national elites
associated with foreign interests). In the cases of Jair Bolsonaro and Javier Milei, prominent
representatives of the new Latin American neopatriot far right, the contestation extends to
regional organizations (particularly those that emerged during the 2003–15 “pink tide”), (re)
politicizing consensus and norms from a sovereigntist reaffirmation opposed to cooperation
and integration with neighbors. If Latin American progressive populisms saw in regional
integration under the ideal of a “Patria Grande” (“Great Fatherland”) a strategy to build
national projects and a united “people” facing engagement between national oligarchies and
imperialism, the new far-right is reversing this antagonism in a sovereigntist way to contest
regionalism and regional integration.

Keywords far right • populism • contestation of regionalism • Bolsonaro • Milei

Key messages
• The contestation of multilateralism and international norms is a constitutive element of
the new neopatriot far right.
• Latin American progressive populisms saw in regional integration under the ideal of a
“Patria Grande” (“Great Fatherland”) a strategy to build national projects and a united
“people” facing engagement between national oligarchies and imperialism.
• The new far right is reversing this antagonism in a sovereigntist way.

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 The far right, populism, and the contestation of regionalism in South America

To cite this article: Sanahuja, J.A., Hernández Nilson, D. and Burian, C.L. (2024) The
far right, populism, and the contestation of regionalism in South America: Bolsonaro and
Milei, Global Discourse, 14(4): 502–522, DOI: 10.1332/20437897Y2024D000000041

Introduction
The contestation and rejection of regionalism, cooperation, and regional integration
are recurrent elements in the political discourse, practice, and government actions
of the new far-right forces in Latin America. These discourses and practices of
contestation are part of a global dynamic of contestation of multilateralism and
international norms, placed within the sovereigntist, nationalist, and anti-globalist
matrix of these forces on a global scale. This article examines this trend by first
analyzing the causes of the rise of these forces in terms of structure and agency
in the context of the crisis of globalization and the international liberal order that
we understand as a hegemonic order. We discuss the concepts of politicization or
contestation and their constitutive role in the discourses and practices that explain
the rise of these forces, which we define as the neopatriot far right,1 as they are
situated at the crossroads between two constitutive political cleavages. The first one
is defined by ideological positions on the continuous left–right axis. The second one,
concerning globalization, is related to their stance on the axis between globalism, that
is, the acceptance of globalization, economic liberalism, and cosmopolitan values,
on one side, and anti-globalism and its sovereigntist and nationalist foundations, on
the other side. The article also shows the populist matrix often displayed by these
political discourses and practices. All this is applied to two Latin American case
studies—Argentina and Brazil—through the governments of Jair Bolsonaro and Javier
Milei. The choice of these two cases lies in the fact that both demonstrate neopatriot
far-right forces in government. While the governmental action has just begun in one
of these cases and has already concluded in the other, the approach to these cases and
the non-systematic comparison between them (using primary and secondary sources
to examine discourses and practices) allows for a deeper understanding of the analyzed
phenomenon. The article analyzes their positions and policies toward South American
or Latin American regional organizations, particularly those promoted or recrafted
by progressive governments in the 2000s: the Union of South American Nations
(Unasur), the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), and
the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) in its “post-liberal” phase. The article
shows the discursive and political analogies and differences between both governments
and points out how they give rise to a subaltern contestation with respect to US
policy under the Trump administration. Finally, the article raises some questions on
the differences between these strategies with respect to traditional Latin American
populism, which is favorable to regionalism and Latin American regional integration.

The new neopatriot far-right wing in Latin America: regional

expression of a global dynamic
The discourses and practices of contestation of Latin American regionalism by
Bolsonaro and Milei are part of a global dynamic of the rise of what we call the

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 José Antonio Sanahuja et al

“neopatriot far right” and its sovereigntist and anti-globalist positions, which often also
adopt populist forms and strategies (Sanahuja and López Burian, 2020a; 2023). This
sovereigntist and anti-globalist stance advocates for the primacy of national decisions
and institutions over international ones. This implies a claim to retake national control
over transnational flows and issues (among others, migration, transnational violence,
trade, investment and economics, climate and the environment, and human rights
or gender issues) supposedly governed by international institutions and norms in the
hands of global elites and ideologies often portrayed as expressions of “communism.”
This “zombie anti-communism,” as described by Stefanoni (2021), connects the
modern anti-globalism neopatriots with the anti-communist tradition from the
Cold War and the military and authoritarian regimes of these times. For the cases we
analyze, sovereigntism is supported by two different positions: one appeals to “liberate”
the nation-state from international organizations and elites, while the other seeks to
free the individual from these norms and is rooted in a libertarian and individualist
ideology. As will be seen, both sovereigntist narratives are present in a combined
but distinct manner but converge in an anti-globalist stance. This sovereigntism is
expressed by contrasting the idea of a “true” or “genuine” people and nation, or
other similar formulations, against the globalist transnational elites that it opposes as
its main antagonists.2
In causal terms, this rise can be explained by a combination of structure and agency
factors. Regarding the former, it is a consequence of the crisis of globalization, which
emerged with the financial crisis of 2008, which is understood in this article as an
organic crisis of the hegemonic order in force in the post-Cold War period, the so-
called “liberal international order.” Our interpretation is framed by Robert W. Cox’s
neo-Gramscian categories of hegemony, historical structure, and world order (Cox,
1981; Sanahuja, 2020). The crisis of globalization implies socioeconomic fractures and
profound technological changes, which have called into question neoliberal teleologies
of progress and their certainties, feeding the growing social discontent revealed by
different global surveys, with historically high levels of democratic disaffection with
and criticism of elites (Ipsos, 2021).
In Latin America, the crisis of globalization manifested itself with the exhaustion of
the commodity cycle from 2013 to 2014 and the beginning of a prolonged stage of
low growth and the frustration of expectations of welfare and social progress, which
was further aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The United Nations speaks of
this stage as a “second lost decade” for development (Stott, 2022). This deterioration
of socioeconomic indicators also has a sociopolitical expression that is observed in
surveys on (dis)satisfaction with the performance of democracy by Latinobarómetro
(2023), which between 2018 and 2023, in parallel to what is observed on a global
scale, show the worst indexes in the 25 years since these surveys began.
In terms of agency factors, the crisis of globalization represents a historical phase
of interregnum, a metaphorical expression used by Gramsci to refer to the decade
of the 1930s. As the result of a crisis of hegemony, the interregnum is a stage more
open to the emergence of actors challenging the current order by capitalizing and
mobilizing social discontent. The crisis of globalization and interregnum are, therefore,
fertile ground for the emergence and rise of forces that challenge the liberal order,
both nationally and internationally. They do so through strategies of contestation that
combine the politicization or repoliticization of issues, understandings, norms, and
institutions that the liberal order has “naturalized” and made the object of consensus,

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 The far right, populism, and the contestation of regionalism in South America

and that are therefore outside the field of political dispute, with their objection and
challenge. As Hooghe and Marks (2009) point out, politicization involves placing or
resituating at the center of political dispute the understandings and norms on which
consensus exists through discourses and actions of activation and mobilization within
a matrix of polarization in a political and sociocultural key (Zürn, 2014; Grande and
Hutter, 2016: 7). Politicization or repoliticization is thus part of the dynamics of
contestation, which, according to Antje Wiener’s (2017: 112) definition, is “the set
of social practices that discursively express the disapproval of norms” by questioning
their legitimacy either by origin or foundations, by the actors who promote them,
or by their content.
While contestation can lead to deliberative processes in pluralistic contexts that
allow for adjustments in norms, they can also lead to their weakening and termination.
This contestation can target both fundamental norms, which imply the values that
legitimize multilateral governance, and organizing principles on representation,
decision making, and their implementation. Thereby, the legitimacy of the origin,
processes, and outcomes of international and regional organizations is questioned
(Hooghe et al, 2019). Wiener (2017), finally, distinguishes different forms of
contestation: the reactive, which is based on non-compliance with the norm; the
proactive, which involves critical engagement with the goal of its modification; and
the interpretive, which affects understandings about its meaning and effects.
Thus, in our interpretive model, the existence of a crisis of hegemony, derived
from the crisis of globalization (structure) and the politicization and contestation of
value consensuses and the institutional arrangements and norms of global and regional
governance (agency), is the condition of possibility for the rise of the neopatriot far right:

The cycle of repoliticization and contestation would rather be the expression

of the crisis of globalization as a model or hegemonic project of order,
both in terms of its societal dimension, and in the way it is expressed in the
international arena, through the institutions and rules that govern regional
and global markets, and inter-state relations. (Sanahuja, 2019: 69)

The cosmopolitan values and ideas and the neoliberal ethos on which globalization
attempted to build up its legitimacy are presented by neopatriots as a threat to
national identities or individual free choice. On the other hand, both the global
organization of the productive system and the dissemination of these ideas are based
on international institutions, necessary for the universalization of practices, norms,
policies, and values (from free trade to human rights, including regional integration
itself), whose legitimacy, discourses, and practices are questioned by neopatriots and
their practices of contestation.
The politicization and contestation of the international order is a constitutive feature
of neopatriots. The crisis of globalization introduces a new axis of differentiation and
conflict in the ideological political arena. The traditional liberal left–right cleavage,
in which they place themselves in the sphere of the far right, is still relevant. The
neopatriots claim a social order that they qualify as traditional or natural, with
hierarchical structures that preserve inequalities in terms of class, ethnicity, and gender.
They also have a markedly authoritarian character, questioning the institutions and
balances of liberal democracies and even the legitimacy of their electoral processes.
To this traditional cleavage—and this is the novelty most directly associated with the

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Figure 1: Types of positioning vis-à-vis the crisis of globalization, understood as a

historical structure

Political identification
Left Right
globalist left-wing globalist right-wing
Globalist movements movements
(progressive cosmopolitan) (Davos right-wing
Attitude vis-à-vis movements)
globalization anti-globalist left-wing anti-globalist right-wing
Anti-globalist movements movements
(left-wing sovereigntists) (neo-patriotic)

Source: Sanahuja and López Burian (2023: 25).

crisis of globalization as a hegemonic order—is added a second cleavage between

extreme nationalism or sovereignty and cosmopolitanism, which these forces call
“globalism” (Sanahuja, forthcoming: 4–5). The implications of these changes can be
visualized by modeling the ideological political field through Cartesian coordinates,
whose two axes correspond to the two aforementioned cleavages, which give shape
to four quadrants (see Figure 1).
The quadrant in which the neopatriot and anti-globalist far right is inscribed is
the most recent and most dynamic on a global scale. It includes a broad group of
political forces and leaders who question both liberal democracy in the domestic
order and the international liberal order, such as Donald Trump (US), Viktor Orbán
(Hungary), Vladimir Putin (Russia), Giorgia Meloni (Italy), Andrzej Duda (Poland),
Recep Taiyip Erdoğan (Turkey), Benyamin Netanyahu (Israel) and Narendra Modi
(India), who have headed the government of their countries. Santiago Abascal (Spain),
Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel (Germany), and Marine Le Pen (France) have not
acceded to government, but through alliances with the traditional center-right, or by
threatening its dominant position, they are already relevant actors in their countries.
In Latin America, Javier Milei governs in Argentina and Nayib Bukele in El
Salvador. Jair Bolsonaro governed Brazil, and Fabricio Alvarado Costa Rica and José
Antonio Kast in Chile contested electoral second rounds. In Uruguay, Guido Manini
Ríos is a member of the government coalition. These actors, moreover, maintain
convergent and sometimes coordinated actions, constituting a new “reactionary
internationalism” (De Orellana and Michelsen, 2019; Sanahuja and López Burian,
2020b; Michelsen et al, 2023; Tokatlián, 2024a; Sanahuja, forthcoming). This element
sharply differentiates neopatriots from the liberal-conservative right, who positively
value globalization and its governance within the international liberal order.
As a whole, neopatriots deploy a defense against what they diffusely and strategically
call “globalism”: a set of “norms, principles, values and international organizations that
promote a cosmopolitan and multilateral vision” (Sanahuja and López Burian, 2020a:
29). According to their vision, globalism interferes with national sovereignty and/or
individual rights in different areas: the political system and national sovereignty; human
rights, including gender equality and the recognition of diversity; trade and investment
rules; the environment; migrations; and international alignments (Sanahuja and López
Burian, 2020a). The questioning takes the form of a “cultural battle,” with polarizing
discourses that reject diverse and open societies, assuming conservative values that
vindicate, not without specific contradictions, the “traditional” order, individualistic

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libertarian stances, and national-sovereigntist perspectives. The anti-globalism of the

neopatriots has its defining and binding element in the contestation of international
and regional institutions and norms (Sanahuja and López Burian, 2020a). This is what
differentiates them from the traditional conservative right or part of the neoliberal
right, which accepts the “external constitutionalization” of the norms, especially
economic norms, on which globalization has been based (Gill, 2000).
These strategies of contestation of international norms often assume populist
discourses that present globalization and “globalism” as instruments of the elites to
benefit themselves at the expense of the people. The contestation of international
norms and populism are two closely linked features of their political practice:
“pursuing a conflictual and revisionist foreign policy can lend credibility to populists’
radical image as representatives of ‘the people’, defined in national and nativist terms,
against corrupt international ‘elites’” (Pacciardi et al, 2024: 2028), as studied by Hall
(2021) in relation to Trump’s foreign policy.
The literature on populism identifies several core attributes of neopatriots (Laclau,
2010; Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2019): the emphatic use of rhetoric; identification
with personal and charismatic leaderships; the (re)foundational, redemptive, and
messianic vocation of their leaders; direct communication with the people, without
intermediation; and, of greater interest for the present analysis, the establishment of
an antagonism between elites and the people. The same Gramscian idea of organic
crisis with which we have been operating also feeds the conceptualization offered
by Laclau (2010: 112) on the antagonistic relationship as the foundation of populist
politics: “The notion of a constitutive antagonism, of a radical frontier requires
… a fractured space.” This fractured space is characterized by “an accumulation of
unsatisfied demands and a growing incapacity of the institutional system to absorb
them…. The result could easily be … the emergence of a growing chasm separating
the institutional system from the population” (Laclau, 2010: 98–9).
Following the Schmittian friend–enemy concept of the political, anti-globalism
establishes an antagonism between the elites (among others, the bureaucrats of
international organizations, globalist politicians of the left and right, international
nongovernmental organizations, and businessmen and financiers promoting “globalist”
agendas) and the people (or “ordinary citizens”), whose existence and identity is
threatened by the norms and institutions that those elites, it is alleged, promote for
their own benefit. Certainly, the populist character of these political movements is
an element of debate in the literature (Sanahuja and López Burian, 2023). From our
point of view, their populism is not a constitutive ideological element but a defining
feature, a political-discursive practice that delimits the political space on the basis
of the elites–people antagonism through dynamics of politicization that call into
question the established consensus and understandings and that promote political
and sociocultural polarization.

Latin American neopatriots: anti-globalism, populism,

and contestation
Latin American neopatriots maintain the general attributes of the category: anti-
globalism, cultural conservatism, political sovereignty, populist discourse, and
normative contestation. This is illustrated by the anti-globalization rhetoric of
Bolsonaro and Milei, which redefines the popular, the national, and the international,

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differentiating it from the traditional Latin American right. This differentiation is

observed, for example, in relation to the regulatory norms of international trade
and investment, as well as regional integration: “The central point that articulates
the contestation of the neopatriots in this dimension is the rejection of the external
constitutionalization of trade and investment rules” (Sanahuja and López Burian,
2020a: 29). Here, external constitutionalization refers to what Stephen Gill (2000)
described as the neoliberal regulatory structure of the global political economy.
Likewise, the differences pointed out within the neopatriot universe also emerge
in the cases considered: while Bolsonaro is a nationalist-sovereigntist, his former
Minister of Economy Paulo Guedes was a radical neoliberal; and while Milei is a
libertarian individualist, his vice-president Victoria Villarruel is rather nationalist
and ultraconservative.
The interrelation between contestation and populism, as pointed out by Pacciardi,
Spandler, and Söderbaum (2024), has also been observed for the Latin American far
right, which makes “use of populist rhetoric to argue that there is a ‘corrupt elite’
composed of progressive circles that control a series of organizations—judicial apparatus,
media, international institutions, etc.—and that, for the same reason, they propose
the need to carry out reforms to diminish the power of these organizations” (Rovira
Kaltwasser, 2024: 65). This same scheme is transferred to regional organizations,
particularly those like Unasur and CELAC, associated with post-liberal (Sanahuja,
2009) or post-hegemonic regionalism (Riggirozzi and Tussie, 2012) forged by the
governments of the Latin American “pink tide” of the early 21st century (2003–15).
Bolsonaro’s and Milei’s contestation of Latin American regionalism is inscribed
and replicated in the general contestation by neopatriots of any rule coming from
abroad. The anti-globalist logic of the contestation of international organizations is
thus transferred to the regional sphere in a similar way as neopatriots and Eurosceptic
populists do against the European Union, though with certain specificities:

This cycle of contestation of integration in Latin America has its own

distinctive features.They can be mostly explained by the ideological fractures
and the dynamics of politicization and polarization that run through the
region. However, this cycle is also part of a global trend of contestation of
regionalism and multilateralism from conservative and sovereigntist positions.
(Sanahuja, forthcoming: 4–5)

In addition to this general contestation of international norms, in the case of Latin

American regionalism, there is also the questioning of the objectives of development
and autonomy, as well as questions based on the origin associated with leftist
governments of the Latin American “pink tide.” The absence of supranational
mechanisms and a bureaucracy of consideration in the regional blocs, as well as the
subordination of Latin American neopatriots to the US, the hegemonic power in
the continent, also influence the specificities of the case.

Bolsonaro: a challenge to regionalism and regional integration

from Brazil
The government of Jair Bolsonaro (2019–22)3 presented a clear pattern of contestation
of the international liberal order and, therefore, also of regional integration,

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regionalism, and regional cooperation. Bolsonaro’s government—and often the

president himself—developed practices and discourses that questioned its values,
norms, and institutions, its legitimacy of origin and outcome, and its decision-
making processes. This questioning varied according to the interests and positions
of his domestic support coalitions, with Bolsonaro being aware of the political costs
and benefits of his contestation of international organizations (Saraiva et al, 2024).
That contestation combined national-sovereigntist elements and aspects linked to
a rhetoric of efficiency. Anti-globalism articulated this two-faced discourse, which
had an identitarian nationalist face and an authoritarian neoliberal one (Caetano
et al, 2019; Ramas San Miguel, 2019). It adopted a confrontational strategy, which
made it difficult to generate consensus or compromise, promoting non-cooperative
actions. (Re)Politicization and polarization were central parts of this strategy, which
was deployed through a populist discourse that pitted elites (both international and
national, considered by the neopatriots as corrupt and anti-national) against the “true
people,” often synthesized in the artificial archetyping of the “common man” (in an
anti-feminist key) as a “good citizen” and “decent people.”4 This “people,” the basis
for thinking of the “national interest” from a realistic perspective, was presented as
being threatened by different disintegrating forces coming from “globalism.”
There is a widespread assessment of the far-right and populist character of
Bolsonaro’s foreign policy (Casarões, 2021; Casarões and Farias, 2021; Casarões
and Saraiva, 2021; Guimarães and Dutra de Oliveira e Silva, 2021; Saraiva and
Albuquerque, 2022). Belem Lopes, Carvalho, and Santos (2022), in the same vein,
stress that Bolsonaro had a great capacity to politicize foreign policy issues, for
example, by pointing out that Brazil should not be a new Cuba or Venezuela.5 In Latin
America, the contraposition of “communism or freedom” and anti-Bolivarianism in
relation to Venezuela has been a polarizing dichotomy used by neopatriots (Sanahuja
and López Burian, 2022). Bolsonaro also used foreign policy to give signals to his
electorate and sought to capitalize on his popularity, leaving other issues in the hands
of career diplomats (Belem Lopes et al, 2022).6
In relation to the major global players, Brazil showed ups and downs. The beginning
of the government was marked by an automatic and subordinate alignment to the
Trump administration (Rodrigues, 2022). The US president constituted himself as
the “significant other,” shifting state relations to a personal axis (Guimarães and Dutra
de Oliveira e Silva, 2021) until Trump’s departure from the government in January
2021. Bolsonaro received Trump’s support for Brazil’s entry into the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), signed an agreement for the
use of the Alcântara Base (Maranhão), and became an extra-NATO ally, allowing
him preferential access to US military equipment and technology (Rodrigues, 2022:
5). Joe Biden’s triumph implied a setback for Bolsonaro, and he moved to a more
pragmatic repositioning. On the other hand, the relationship with China was strongly
affected by the rhetoric of Chancellor Araújo, especially during the pandemic, when
he called COVID-19 the “Chinese virus” and included China in his anti-communist
narrative, in which the “Bolivarian axis” was also included at the regional level.
With the European Union, although the agreement with Mercosur, which began
to be closed in 2019, was well regarded by the neoliberal wing headed by Minister
of Economy Paulo Guedes, it was later slowed down by political dynamics in both
blocs and the debate on environmental issues that pitted Bolsonaro against French
President Emmanuel Macron.

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The subordination to Trump’s strategy and the loss of leadership in the region
could be seen in the positioning adopted by Bolsonaro in the face of the crisis
that Venezuela was going through (Frenkel and Azzi, 2021: 175). In January 2019,
Brazil recognized Juan Guaidó as president of Venezuela. In April, Vice President
Hamilton Mourão, in the framework of a meeting of the Grupo de Lima (Lima
Group)7 in Colombia, affirmed that Maduro’s government was illegitimate and
illegal, hinting at the possibility of external intervention (Rodrigues, 2022: 7).
The alignment with the US had direct repercussions for Brazil’s positioning and
role in the region. However, despite adopting belligerent rhetoric, Vice President
Mourao, coming from the armed forces, led Brazil to adopt more temperate positions
than those adopted, for example, by Iván Duque’s Colombia, another sign of the
internal differences between the ideologized and pragmatic positions presented by
Bolsonaro’s government.
Along with this strongly ideological alignment with the Trump administration came
a retreat from the strategic importance of the South American region for Brazilian
foreign policy. As Miriam Saraiva (2023: 113) points out, “There are no regional
stakeholders in his coalition of support. And the election of leftist presidents tends
to further isolate the country, as Bolsonaro prefers relations with governments, not
states, and avoids contact with leaders with a progressive profile.”
In March and April 2019, the Bolsonaro government presented new acts of
contestation of South American post-liberal regionalism, with its participation in the
creation of the Forum for the Progress of South America (PROSUR), a neoliberal
initiative led by liberal-conservative governments (Chile and Colombia, in particular)
as a correlate of the strategy of dismantling Unasur adopted by the Lima Group to
isolate Venezuela. The new organization was intended to replace Unasur, but it
was never a priority for the Brazilian government. During the pandemic in 2020,
President Piñera convened three virtual meetings to discuss potential cooperation,
but Jair Bolsonaro did not attend any of them (Barros and de Souza Borba Gonçalves,
2021; Saraiva, 2023: 109).
Some of the foundations of this change were argued by the Bolsonaro government
to include the clash between “communism” and a neoliberal efficiency vision. This
was expressed by Minister Ernesto Araújo: “The replacement of UNASUR by
PROSUR, grounded in democracy and economic freedom, provides us with a new
integrationist leverage capable of transforming South America into a great space
of economic dynamism, free once and for all from caudillismo and the totalitarian
project of the São Paulo Forum” (Araújo, 2019, quoted in Saraiva et al, 2024: 8).8
In addition, regionalism was also contested at the Latin American level on the same
basis. Brazil’s withdrawal from CELAC materialized in January 2021. At that time,
Araújo stated: “CELAC did not have results in defense of democracy or any other
area. On the contrary, it gave a stage to non-democratic regimes such as those in
Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua” (quoted in Saraiva et al, 2024: 9).
At the sub-regional level, Mercosur has also been the object of contestation by
Brazil. During his time as a federal deputy, Bolsonaro had a markedly critical discourse
on Mercosur, which he described as an “ideological” organization. He argued that
Brazil would have other options outside the “ideological moorings of Mercosur,”
and he proposed: “Let’s move towards bilateralism for the real development of the
country” (BBC, 2019). Already in the electoral campaign, while his future Minister
of Economy Paulo Guedes maintained that Argentina and Mercosur would not be a

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priority for Brazil, Bolsonaro began to show nuances by maintaining that Mercosur
could not be “abandoned from one moment to the next” because “many people
invested” in its construction. In January 2019, already as president, Bolsonaro met
with Argentine President Mauricio Macri in Brasilia. In that meeting, he stressed
the importance of making changes to Mercosur, orienting it toward greater trade
openness (BBC, 2019).
In the second half of 2019, during Argentina’s presidential election campaign,
Bolsonaro positioned himself in favor of Macri’s reelection and had harsh words
for the Peronist candidate, Alberto Fernandez, whom he identified as a “leftist.”
This preamble was followed by a significant deterioration of the relationship with
Argentina after Fernández’s victory. These tensions in the bilateral relationship affected
Mercosur, as the Brasilia–Buenos Aires axis occupies a central place in the regional
bloc. In this dynamic of contestation, Bolsonaro promoted a process of bureaucratic
and political transformations that subtracted institutional capacities from Mercosur
(Granja, 2023), while placing the bloc in a secondary place in Brazilian foreign policy,
as demonstrated by several absences at high-level meetings (Saraiva et al, 2024: 10).
In November 2021, Brazil unilaterally decided on a temporary reduction of the
common external tariff (CET). Despite Argentina’s opposition and the fact that this
matter was to be agreed upon by consensus, in May 2022, Brazil unilaterally extended
the measure until the end of the year. Finally, in July 2022, the reduction of the
CET was agreed among all Mercosur members. Following Pacciardi, Spandler, and
Söderbaum, this can be interpreted as a form of extortion and an extreme variant of
the contestation of regionalism by unilaterally imposing a change to the functioning
of the organization:

cease cooperation with an international institution, combined with tacit or

explicit demands for change in policies, institutional design or burden-sharing
in the institution. By using extortion, populist governments can publicly show
their opposition to an institution while at the same time signaling that they
are principally interested in continued cooperation, albeit on different terms.
Provided the institution reacts by making concessions, the government can
also increase the material benefits it obtains from membership. (Pacciardi
et al, 2024: 2029)

Despite the belligerent rhetoric, on issues of the external agenda, the Bolsonaro
government did not make significant changes to the policy developed in the
government of Michel Temer (2016–18) (Saraiva et al, 2024: 10). As explained by
Miriam Saraiva, Leslie E. Wehner and Feliciano de Sá Guimarães (2024: 9–11):

Bolsonaro’s populist narrative clashed with domestic groups seeking sectoral

gains in specific foreign policy actions, leading to a constant interplay of
conciliation and confrontation. While Bolsonaro followers neglected and
attacked the regional political and institutional dimension, the same did not
occur in the economic sphere, with groups capable of producing damage.…
[W]hen the economic dimension of the ROs [regional organizations] was at
stake, Bolsonaro preferred to frame as a rescuing mission of his administration.
That is, ROs per se are not a problem; they have to be revamped according
to conservative ideals.

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 José Antonio Sanahuja et al

For these authors, Bolsonaro’s contestation of Mercosur not only had an ideological
element but was also influenced by political strategies:

Bolsonaro’s contradictory behavior follows a people vs. elite rationale,

consistent with the populist view of ROs as representatives of a corrupt
elite. This approach aligned with the normative preferences of sovereigntist
and conservative domestic groups supporting the project. However, these
ideological underpinnings became secondary when Bolsonaro’s government
had to accommodate the material demands of key groups. The industrial
sector advocacy and pressure group voiced their preferences about
maintaining membership in MERCOSUR. (Saraiva et al, 2024: 11)

Ideas, interests, and institutions (political rules) shaped Bolsonaro’s foreign policy.
There were continuities with the previous Temer government. The (re)politicization
and contestation of regional integration, regionalism, and regional cooperation
began in that period with a conservative-liberal government. The beginning of the
critique of ideologization and the search for efficient structures can be found there.
The contestation that unfolded in the region had a confrontational character that
questioned the legitimacy of regional organizations, the effectiveness of their processes,
and the convenience of their results. As a common denominator, it was also framed
in an anti-globalist discourse that had national sovereignty and neoliberal elements.
However, Bolsonaro’s foreign policy has not only been characterized by placing the
country in a position of subordination to the Trump administration. By naturalizing
and assuming that position and making Washington’s discourse and practices of
response its own, we can also speak of a new pattern of subaltern contestation.

A libertarian contestation of regionalism and integration: the

case of Javier Milei
As in the case of Bolsonaro, Milei’s practice of normative contestation is associated
with a populist discourse with diatribes against “the caste”: “a ‘corrupt elite’ to which
he opposes a ‘pure people’ of individuals who are robbed of the fruits of their efforts”
(Vommaro, 2023: 4). This narrative is transferred to the international arena, where the
populist antagonism of elites–people is inscribed in an anti-globalist vision, according
to which, “now the elites are leftist—and control the global common sense—and
the right represents the common people fighting against wokist neo-totalitarianism”
(Stefanoni, 2024: 15).
Milei also shares with Bolsonaro the assumption of international normative
contestation from a subaltern position to the US. At the beginning of his administration,
“President Milei announced a ‘new foreign policy doctrine’ based on a strategic
alliance with the U.S. that must not contradict ‘Western values’” (Zilla, 2024: 7).
Milei’s foreign policy has been defined as Westernist, based on “an overideologization
that postulates alignment with Western powers as the main ordering variable”
(Pereyra Doval, 2024), as well as “hyper-Westernist” (Tokatlián, 2024b), understood
as a foreign and defense policy strategy based on a logic of acquiescence with the
US, or, more precisely, with its Trumpist version. Coincidentally to what happened
with the former Brazilian president, the flip side of this point is the distancing from
and tensions with China, despite the important economic ties that both countries

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maintain with the Asian giant. On the other hand, this Westernism refers to a West
built on libertarian and “anti-woke” premises that only exist in the imagination of
Milei and his followers, given the purely Western nature of the rules and institutions
of the liberal international order challenged by the neopatriots.
Milei’s international normative contestation is based on a libertarian individualist
ideological position, in line with his profile as an economist and follower of the Austrian
School and a populist admirer of Murray Rothbard’s anarcho-libertarian model. This
leads him to prioritize the opposition between the external constitutionalization of the
rules of the international economy and individual free choice, reserving sovereignty
and nationalist claims mainly to security issues.9 Milei presented his libertarian anti-
globalist vision at the 2024 Davos Forum (Stefanoni, 2024), where his oratory began
by warning that “the West is in danger,” with the rough political rhetoric of “an
aggressive, alone warrior leading a crusade” (Zilla, 2024: 1). In his speech, he described
an antagonistic camp composed of neo-Marxists, international organizations, globalists,
and state rulers that threatens the West:

Neo-Marxists have managed to co-opt the common sense of the Western

world, and this they have achieved by appropriating the media, culture,
universities and also international organisations. The latter case is the most
serious one, probably because these are institutions that have enormous
influence on the political and economic decisions of their member
states.… whether they proclaim to be openly communist, fascist, socialist,
social democrats, national socialists, Christian democrats, neo-Keynesians,
progressives, populists, nationalists or globalists. Ultimately, there are no major
differences. They all say that the state should steer all aspects of the lives of
individuals. (World Economic Forum, 2024)

During the 2023 electoral campaign and in the first nine months of government
(December 2023–August 2024), such a vision resulted in an active contestation of
Latin American regionalism. As a practice, it gives continuity to the contestation
practiced during the last decade by the South American liberal-conservative right
(Sanahuja, forthcoming), but Milei gave it new features by framing it within strong
anti-globalist rhetoric and the populist scheme that portrays regional integration as a
tool of the elites to subordinate individuals and to benefit themselves at the expense
of the people.
Milei’s contestation is deployed through a confrontational strategy toward the
institutions, norms, and fundamental values of regionalism. This contestation is
mostly rhetorical in nature and channeled through informal means (social networks
or the press). The alternative of a cooperative and formal contestation, which would
enable constructive debate and eventual new agreements, is relegated to a second
option, assumed by secondary actors. As Zilla (2024: 7) observes, “Milei does not
adopt the demeanour of a head of state engaged in diplomacy—a role he delegates
to his Foreign Minister, Diana Mondino.”
The differentiation between these two modalities of contestation of regionalism
by the Argentine government corresponds to the distinction formulated by Wiener
(2017) between reactive and proactive contestation. Milei’s preference for the first
modality can be associated with the practice of “virtual diplomacy” (Pereyra Doval,
2024), which reinforces the dichotomous narrative characteristic of the populist

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 José Antonio Sanahuja et al

component of his discourse: “The overideologized discourse in social networks

constructs an alternative reality in a dichotomous key, where there are good and bad,
communists and capitalists…. In this way, a narrative of strong initial impact is built,
beyond the subsequent countermarches or denials” (Pereyra Doval, 2024). Milei’s
reactive contestation would be in line with the developments of “virtual diplomacy,”
while in real diplomacy, the Argentine government is sticking (for the time being)
to proactive contestation. This distinction between the reactive, confrontational,
and rhetorical contestation sustained by Milei through “virtual diplomacy” and
the proactive and tangible contestation of other representatives corresponds to the
ambivalent and contradictory dynamics observed in the populist contestation of
international organizations: “populists’ variegated disengagement from international
institutions is a way to navigate the inherently ambivalent nature of populist foreign
policy, which is shaped by the contradictory imperatives of radicalism and pragmatism”
(Pacciardi et al, 2024: 2026).
Milei’s contestation of Latin American regionalism can also be seen in relation to the
three main regional organizations of which Argentina is a member: Unasur, CELAC,
and Mercosur. Starting with Unasur, on January 4, 2024, an Argentine newspaper
announced the news that the Argentine government was determined to leave the South
American bloc (Niebieskikwiat, 2024). The news was released one week after the
decision of the Argentine government not to accept an invitation to join the BRICS+
(Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa association) (on December 29) and less
than a year after the relaunching of a new South American regionalist process based on
the so-called “Brasilia Consensus” (May 30, 2023), an event in which former Argentine
President Alberto Fernández played a prominent role, along with other figures of the
South American left, such as Lula da Silva, José Mujica, Gustavo Petro, and Nicolás
Maduro. After meeting with the Argentine Foreign Minister, the Brazilian Ambassador
in Buenos Aires Julio Bitelli relativized the rumor:

Diana Mondino told me that there are no intentions to leave Unasur and
that, as in the case of Mercosur, there are ideas of the new government on
how it should work and what the priorities of regional integration should
be…. One thing is to discuss ways of perfecting regional integration based
on the existing mechanisms in the region, and in this they always count on
Brazil. Another thing is what came out a little in the press, and what the
Chancellor told me yesterday is not true, which is simply to isolate themselves
and get out of the discussions. (Perfil, 2024)

Thus, it is observed how the narrative of the contestation of Unasur follows the
aforementioned dynamics: going from reactive and rhetorical rejection in the media
to enabling a proactive modality in the framework of the real diplomacy assumed by
the Foreign Ministry. This dynamic corresponds to that observed in the literature
with respect to the fact that the populist rejection of international organizations
only exceptionally goes to the extreme of actually withdrawing from membership
(Pacciardi et al, 2024). Often, it is merely rhetorical speculation about this possibility,
which acts as a way of feeding the radical populist discourse to its public. However,
this also acts to undermine the legitimacy of the organization.
With respect to CELAC, Argentina was barely represented by Deputy Foreign
Minister Leopoldo Sahores at the VIII Presidential Summit in Kingstown in March 2024.

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In any case, the absences of Milei and Mondino were disguised in a rather lackluster
summit that was not attended by most of the South American presidents (which can be
explained as part of the broader discrediting of Latin American regionalism) (Sanahuja,
forthcoming). At the summit, a declaration on the Malvinas Islands was issued, which
merited a protocol “thank you” from the Argentine Foreign Ministry.
Finally, Mercosur has undoubtedly been the main focus of Milei’s contestation of
regionalism, both explicitly and through symbolic gestures. In August 2013, during
the election campaign, Milei was categorical about his idea of eliminating the bloc:

Mercosur must be eliminated because it is a defective customs union that

harms the good Argentines. In essence, it is a trade administered by States
in order to favor rent-seeking businessmen. This generates trade diversion,
it does not generate welfare. It generates rents for friends of power. A truly
horrifying thing. (Bloomberg, 2023)

This contestation of the integration process combines the typical populist anti-elite
discourse with a politicization of regionalism based on libertarian ideology. On the
one hand, Milei transfers to South American regionalism the populist discourse
practiced by Eurosceptics, who see regional integration as a tool that favors corrupt
elites to the detriment of the people (“the good Argentines”). However, unlike
European populists, the alternative to regional integration is not economic nationalism
but “moving towards a process of unilateral opening” of the country’s economy
(Bloomberg, 2023). In this way, he transfers to the regional level the libertarian
vision with which he is accustomed to questioning domestic institutions (typically
the Central Bank).
Once in government, Milei deliberately absented himself from the 64th Mercosur
Presidential Summit held in Asunción to participate in the Conservative Political
Action Conference (CPAC), an American-led convention of far-right politicians
held in Brazil, then organized by Bolsonaro. Although Milei made no reference to
Mercosur at this event, his absence at the summit was an opportunity for reactionary
transnational articulation, resuming in his defense of Bolsonaro the attacks on Lula
from an anti-elite argument that celebrated the attempted coup d’état in Brazil in
January 2024:

the same individuals who fill their mouths talking about democracy, pluralism
and oppression, are the ones who are willing to bend the rules and even
interrupt the constitutional order to barricade themselves in the Palace when
the people demand a change…. Look at the judicial persecution suffered by
our friend Jair Bolsonaro, in Brazil. (Casa Rosada, 2024)10

Non-attendance at summits, thereby delegitimizing them as governing bodies through a

defiant attitude, is one of the characteristic modalities of obstruction of the functioning
of international organizations by populist leaders (Pacciardi et al, 2024), which seems
to be the case, given the symbolism of the excuse used by Milei to be absent.
In the case of Mercosur, it is also the chancellor who assumes a proactive
contestation. During the electoral campaign, Mondino had qualified Milei’s words
regarding the elimination of the bloc, explaining more constructively that this “has
been working as a customs union and with a little touch it can make a big turnaround.

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We have to associate, negotiate among our countries, jointly with the rest of the
world” (Herrero Camacho, 2023). Already as chancellor, representing Argentina at
the 64th Summit, Mondino referred to the need to make the bloc more flexible in
order to strengthen it. Since then, the Argentine government has repeatedly contested
the customs union, demanding the reduction of the CET and the authorization to
negotiate bilaterally with third countries. As Sanahuja (forthcoming: 9) points out,
the abolition of the customs union appears as one of the objectives of the practices
of contestation of the regional bloc, thus questioning the developmentalist model
traditionally predominant among the South American Atlantic countries, which seeks
to maintain trade policy tools in the hands of the states. In practice, these guidelines
have positioned Argentina in a convergent direction with Uruguay, governed by a
liberal-conservative president but inscribed in a populist discourse.
Although Milei’s contestation of regionalism has (so far) not had any repercussions
on substantive decisions affecting the country’s insertion into regional organizations,
the dissemination of this narrative has consequences. On the one hand, it favors
political polarization at the domestic and regional levels, while, on the other hand,
it also contributes to undermining the legitimacy of the organizations, generating a
social perception of failure of regionalism and regional integration, if not animosity,
within the framework of the antagonistic logic characteristic of populist discourse.

Conclusions
Bolsonaro’s and Milei’s discourses and practices of contestation of Latin American
regionalism maintain many similarities and show coordinated action among the
main South American representatives of the “reactionary international.” First of
all, in both cases, these discourses and practices maintain the characteristics of
the contestation of the international order of neopatriots and anti-globalists on a
global scale. On the one hand, they express firm opposition to any rule coming
from abroad (which, as mentioned, is based on a national-sovereigntist position for
Bolsonaro and on an individualist libertarian one for Milei). On the other hand,
they inscribe their anti-globalism in a populist scheme of opposition between the
people and elites.
Second, Bolsonaro’s and Milei’s contestation of regionalism assumes some distinctive
characteristics associated with its subaltern character to the US (Sanahuja, forthcoming:
9). In the first place, it contests the pretensions of political autonomy of the region
vis-à-vis the US, which is claimed by organizations of political coordination or sectoral
cooperation, such as Unasur and CELAC. In the second place, the contestation of
regionalism also points against the developmentalist ambitions associated with Latin
American regional integration, particularly Mercosur, the main alternative for these
two countries to a primary exporting international insertion.
Third, the contestation of regionalism often fulfills the function of metaphor or
metonymy, being used by extension to criticize leftist leaders for their “Bolivarian”
or “communist” position (in particular, Lula, Chávez, and Kirchner), whose
governments gave organizations a strong autonomist character vis-à-vis the US and
the inter-American system. This subaltern contestation of regionalism implies the
risk pointed out by Tokatlián (2024a: 110) that in their attempt to “save the West,”
South American expressions of “reactionary internationalism” end up dragging the
region toward a “retrograde regionalism” in which:

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 The far right, populism, and the contestation of regionalism in South America

Instead of promoting collective agreements to face global challenges,

sovereignty would be vindicated to the extreme…. instead of coexisting
with a changing globalization process, the Western North led by Washington
… would be a protective trench. In the less developed South, intransigent
and sectarian governments that would not question the asymmetry of
world power would gradually consolidate, with exacerbated nationalism
in their neighborhoods.

Fourth, Milei’s and Bolsonaro’s contestation of regionalism differs from the

contestation practiced by the Latin American liberal-conservative right during
the last decade. The latter did not wield an anti-globalist discourse but limited
itself to criticizing regional organizations on the basis of the right–left ideological
cleavage, proposing (with little success) new institutions, such as Prosur, to replace
the organizations created by South American post-liberal regionalism, or trying to
reduce Mercosur to a free trade zone with exclusively commercial content. In turn,
Milei and Bolsonaro differentiate themselves from the traditional South American
right-wing contestation of regionalism by inscribing the questioning in the usual
populist scheme of the neopatriots, evidenced in the rhetorical radicalism of their
contestation practices, which does not always lead to radical decisions but strains
regional politics and polarizes the domestic sphere.
The inscription of the contestation of regionalism in a populist scheme constitutes
a considerable novelty for the South American region, as it represents a turn from
the traditional pro-regionalism discourse of the populist leaders of their countries,
including Getulio Vargas, Juan Domingo Perón, and Néstor Kirchner. These
historical leaders generally maintained (with nuances and swings) positions favorable
to regional integration (Hernández Nilson, 2023), presenting it as a strategy to build
autonomy, the nation, and the “people.” These historical positions claimed regional
concertation, cooperation, and integration as tools for the defense and development
of their peoples in the face of imperialist interests and the oligarchic landowning
or commercial elites associated with them. On the contrary, the subaltern character
of Bolsonaro’s and Milei’s contestation of regionalism reverses the way in which
elites and the people position themselves in relation to regional organizations: they
are presented as the tools of the “globalist” elites to benefit socialist dictators and
inefficient and rent-seeking businessmen, inhibiting the people from accessing the
prosperity generated by the free market and belonging to the West. In a way, this is
an analogous movement, taken to the regional level, of the inversion of populism
that Bolsonaro and Milei practice domestically, where this political practice ceases
to be the construction of the people as a unified actor of the poor and aggrieved in
opposition to the oligarchy to become the construction of the people as a middle
class (with a better past but still composed of “good citizens”), which is opposed
to the parasitic populist rulers and the lower class that lives off the state and social
policies of monetary transfers.

ORCID iDs
José Antonio Sanahuja https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6806-5498
Diego Hernández Nilson https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2886-8306
Camilo López Burian https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1185-854X

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 José Antonio Sanahuja et al

Notes
1 For a complete definition of the term, see Sanahuja and López Burian (2023).
2 An analysis of sovereigntism in South America can be found in Padoan (2024). For the

case of the European Union, see the analysis of right-wing sovereigntism in Fabbrini
and Zgaga (2024). Both texts provide an extensive literature review.
3 Two stages can be distinguished according to the minister in charge of foreign relations.

The first, with Ernesto Araújo (January 2019–March 2021), was marked by an important
far-right and anti-globalism ideological orientation. The second, with Carlos França
(April 2021–December 2022) at the head of the ministry, had a greater dose of
pragmatism (Rodrigues, 2022).
4 Daniel de Mendonça (2023) problematizes Bolsonaro’s populist character. He analyzes

the electoral campaigns of 2018 and 2022 and argues that in Bolsonaro’s discourse,
the meanings of “people” do not include the idea of the “poor,” “excluded,” or “silent
majority,” which are hegemonic in the idea of populism. Bolsonarismo associated the
idea of the people with “good citizens” in 2018 and “patriots” in 2022. Mendonça stresses
that both terms are exclusionary and depart from the classic notion of populism: people
as “excluded.”The concept of people is ontologically emptied, while, at the same time,
an antagonism is constructed between this idea of people and its enemies.
5 Even during the election campaign, his visits to Israel and Taiwan were issues of impact

in the public debate.

6 For an analysis of the Bolsonaro government’s attempts to dismantle Brazilian diplomatic

capabilities to achieve its foreign policy objectives, see Pinheiro and Santos (2022).
7 On the hardening of positions in the Lima Group and its relationship with the Forum

for the Progress of South America (PROSUR), see Barros and de Souza Borba
Gonçalves (2021).
8 The São Paulo Forum is made up of Latin American left-wing political parties and

groups, though its meetings are also attended by other left-wing actors from other
continents. It was founded by the Brazilian Workers’ Party in 1990.
9 For example, unlike national-sovereigntist anti-globalists, Milei does not advocate

economic nationalism but rather claims unilateral openness as an optimum.

10In his inauguration ceremony, Milei had already relied on Bolsonaro to attack Lula,

distinguishing the Brazilian neopatriot as a special guest, which led the Brazilian president
to absent himself from the event. In addition, during the electoral campaign, Milei referred
to Lula as a “corrupt communist” (November 8, 2023), an accusation he had already
ratified as president in the days prior to the Mercosur summit (June 28, 2024).

Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication
of this article.

Acknowledgments
This work was possible thanks to the support received by Diego Hernández from the
Academic Mobility and Exchange Program of the University of the Republic, which
allowed me to do a postdoctoral stay at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

Conflict of interest
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

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