Anti-power politics and the rise of the far-right in Portugal: why is the contemporary far-right attractive to voters on the left?

• Published in: Ethics & global politics 2024-10, Vol.17 (4), p.1-15
• Main Author: Cordeiro-Rodrigues, Luís
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anti-power politics; Authoritarianism; Chega; Conceptual analysis; Elections; far-right; Ideology; left politics; Philosophers; Political change; Politics; Portuguese politics; Power; Qualitative research; Right wing politics; Theorists; Voter behavior; Voters
• ISSN: 1654-4951; 1654-6369
• DOI: 10.1080/16544951.2024.2372871

The Portuguese elections occurred this March, and the left’s decline has accompanied the far-right’s growth, as in previous elections. Explanations for such phenomena are often carried out using quantitative and qualitative methods. Philosophical conceptual analysis, in contrast, is frequently dismissed as a method for analysing political change. In this paper, I will show how, by using conceptual analysis, it is possible to assist in explaining voting behaviour from the left on the far-right party Chega in Portugal. This methodology resembles philosophers and political theorists using concepts like ‘class’ and ‘authoritarianism’ to assist in explaining socio-political changes. I will use concepts, such as ‘complex ideology’ and ‘anti-power/anti-system politics’, which have helpful explanatory power to the phenomenon I address. Particularly, I argue that the right-wing party Chega can attract voters from the left because of its anti-system ideology, an ideological characteristic of left voters in Portugal. Thus, I argue that the rise of the far-right partly relates to the changing politics of some smaller left parties with parliamentary representation. These political changes within these parties create a space for specific anti-system ideologies that the far-right, in the case of Portugal, can fill.