Trajectories of Populism and the Future of Democracy in the Global South: A Comparative Study of Turkey and Brazil

As the future of democracy is debated worldwide, this research focuses on the following puzzle: why does resilience against authoritarian populism emerge in some countries but not others? It offers a within-case process tracing technique and comparative case analysis for explaining how the current literature on democratic backsliding can address the trajectories of authoritarian populist regimes in Turkey and Brazil and how it is more likely for them to experience a return towards democracy or move in the direction of a fully authoritarian consolidation. Both Turkey and Brazil are paradigmatic cases, shifting towards authoritarianism in the last decade and offer significant insights into the “democratic backsliding” literature for understanding the state-led abolition of horizontal institutions compared to the advanced democracies in the Global North. Selected case studies also represent the populists in power and different types of right-wing populism, such as Islamist populism in Turkey and pro-military populism in the left-wing political trajectory of Brazil. Both countries were recognized as electoral democracies in 2010 and are now seen in the top five autocratic countries of the world. However, Brazil is still categorized as a “democracy” although it is “electoral” and “flawed,” while Turkey is seen as an “electoral autocracy” or “hybrid regime” in internationally accepted democracy indices. There are authoritarian trends for both countries, but what are the institutional and ideological conditions that have allowed the current authoritarian regime in Turkey to consolidate authoritarian populist rule, are there similar conditions and mechanisms present in Brazil to allow an authoritarian populist to consolidate power, and if not, what prevents Brazil from authoritarian populist consolidation? The study mainly argues that a polarized society, the political economy of authoritarian populism and the weakening power of the civil society and critical thinking threaten an authoritarian populist consolidation in both Turkey and Brazil. However, institutional conditions in Turkey have paved the way for a greater move towards such a consolidation, thanks to the 20-year-long uninterrupted authoritarian populist control in the legislature, judiciary, bureaucracy, and media.