Sebastian Etchemendy
Panelist
Craig Cogut Visiting Professor Brown University / Professor Torcuato Di Tella University Argentina
Three Worlds of Right-Wing Populism? The Political Economy of Insurgence
Date and Time
November 10, 2026
12:00PM - 01:30PM EST
Location
CGIS South, Room S216
No registration required to attend in person.
The rise of the populist right is a defining feature of contemporary world politics. In Europe and in the Americas, in particular, the political dimensions (illiberalism, cultural backlash, the reactionary international) of this epochal shift are relatively similar. Yet, this general political confluence masks important differences in the political economy of right-wing populism. Unlike the relatively homogenous socio-economic model of fascism in the 20th century, we find three general economic policy regimes within the modern far-right: Dependent Neoliberalism, with its Radical (Latin America) and National (Eastern Europe) versions, Neoconservative Mercantilism (US), and Welfare Chauvinism (Western Europe). We propose that a focus on how local ideas, interests and institutions interact with the influence of the international economy on each type provides a solid grounding for understanding both the commonalities and divergences of far-right socio-economic models. The presentation will include an analysis of Milei's government in Argentina as a case of Radical Neoliberalism within this framework.
This event is presented in collaboration with the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.
Steven Levitsky
Moderator
Director, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies; David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies; Professor of Government, Harvard
Bios
Sebastián Etchemendy is Professor at the Department of Political Science and International Studies at Torcuato Di Tella University and Craig Cogut visiting Professor 2026-27 at Brown University. He holds a a PhD from the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Hespecializes in the Comparative Political Economy of Latin America and Western Europe. He has worked and published on the political economy of countries such as Argentina, Spain, Chile, Brazil, Portugal, Peru, Mexico, and Uruguay, among others. He has published individual articles in Comparative Political Studies (2) , Comparative Politics , Latin American Politics and Society (2), Journal of Latin American Studies , and Desarrollo Económico , and co-authored articles in Politics & Society (2), Socio-Economic Review, and Desarrollo Económico. He has also published Models of Economic Liberalization: Business, Workers and Compensation in Latin America, Spain and Portugal (Cambridge University Press 2011, EUDEBA 2015) and Labor Outsourcing in Argentina: Diagnosis and Union Strategies (co-author and editor, Biblos 2018). In 2022, he was appointed Robert F. Kennedy Visiting Professor of Latin American Studies at Harvard University, where he taught Comparative Political Economy of Latin America.
Steven Levitsky is David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies and Professor of Government and Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard. He is Senior Fellow at the Kettering Foundation and a Senior Democracy Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. His research focuses on democratization and authoritarianism, political parties, and weak and informal institutions, with a focus on Latin America. He is co-author (with Daniel Ziblatt) of How Democracies Die, which was a New York Times Best-Seller and was published in 30 languages, and Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point. He has written or edited 11 other books, including Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America: Argentine Peronism in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press 2003), Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War (with Lucan Way) (Cambridge University Press, 2010), and Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism (with Lucan Way) (Princeton University Press, 2022). He and Lucan Way are currently working on a book on democratic resilience across the world.
Professor Levitsky has written for New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, and The New Republic, and he has been a columnist for La Republica (Peru) and Folha de São Paulo (Brazil).