From Antipetismo to Generalized Antipartisanship: The Impact of Rejection of Political Parties on the 2018 Vote for Bolsonaro

Abstract

This article analyzes the effects of antipartisanship in explaining the Bolsonaro vote in the 2018 presidential elections. The expansion of the anti-Workers’ Party sentiment known in Portuguese as ‘antipetismo’ into an antipartisanship that accommodates a wider range of targets and a growing association between antipartisanship and political intolerance provide the context for and underscore the relevance of our tests. Our expectation is that the vote for Bolsonaro was strong related to both antipetismo and negative attitudes towards mainstream political parties, especially when such attitudes were intense. The empirical basis of the present work was data from the Barometer of the Americas (LAPOP), particularly from the 2018/2019 wave. Empirical tests indicate that antipartisanship in its varied forms is a relevant phenomenon and had a major role in defining the electoral choices of 2018, particularly in the vote for Bolsonaro.