Jair Bolsonaro’s government (2019-2022) is an exemplary case of the multiple conservative phenomena experienced globally and manifested differently in each country today. This research project argues that current conservative political articulations differ from past conservative tactics, especially regarding human rights. Human rights public policy design and discourse are currently a major arena for conservative groups. These have managed to connect the language of conservative politics with the debate over human rights, imposing a new grammar to this dimension of public life, while reaffirming principles in opposition to previously accepted definitions of human rights. Race, gender, and sexuality play a central role in the case of Bolsonaro’s government, as demonstrated by the Ministry of Women, Family, and Human Rights led by Damares Alves. Based on a systematic assessment of this ministry’s actions during the first two years of Bolsonaro’s government (2019-2020), our work identifies the main terms of the dispute (here referred to as ‘a new grammar’) and considers its possible impacts for the future of human rights public policy production, using Brazil as a key case to understand similar processes in other countries.

This research group examines the educational projects of conservative actors in Chile and Argentina over the last decade from an interdisciplinary, transnational, and comparative perspective. We focus on the governments of Sebastián Piñera (2010-2014 and 2018-present) and Mauricio Macri (2015-2019) as well as their mutual linkages with  private actors. We understand education as a crucial practice that builds cultural hegemony through the transmission of knowledge, values, and ideas in order to produce consensus and social conformity. The group combines two key analyses: the analysis of educational strategies and programmes aimed at students; and, using a broader definition of education, the analysis of visual materials and music as political persuasion strategies aimed at society as a whole. Specifically, we examine the educational projects firstly in terms of their forms of legitimisation and symbolic representation of class, ethnic, and gender-related hierarchies and differences; and secondly in terms of the underlying imaginaries of conviviality. The group analyses texts, visual materials, and musical compositions using discourse analysis (Hajer 2004), the constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss 1967), the iconographic-iconological method (Brocks 2012 among others), and Brenner’s (1992) theoretical multilevel model for the political use of music.