South America

THE SOUTH AMERICAN right is a political group that has evolved by incorporating various ideologies of strong traditional institutions, such as the economical and political systems of colonialism, agrarian oligarchism, conservatism, and militarism. These institutions were also complemented by other positions that are not necessarily characteristic of the right, but were often adapted to its interests: Catholicism, positivism, nationalism, populism, and neoliberalism.

The combination of these characteristics resulted in the application of a series of adjectives for South America and Latin America in general: the continent of popular Catholicism, the land of caudillos, of totalitarian populist regimes and old agrarian “feudal” systems under corrupt governments. Especially during antidemocratic governments, these characteristics have been combined with the interests of the right. For this reason, the right in ...