Technopolitics and Extremist Configurations in the Age of Digital Platforms✽

Marcelo de Souza Marques, David Nemer, Aknaton Toczek Souza, and Felipe Lazzari da Silveira

Received: March 29, 2025 | Accepted: July 8, 2025 | Revised: August 20, 2025

https://doi.org/10.7440/res94.2025.01

Abstract | As the opening article of the dossier “Extremist Configurations in Latin America in the Era of Digital Platforms,” this paper offers a theoretical-analytical reflection on the reconfiguration of contemporary extremism, considering the datafication of life, platformization, and algorithmic governmentality within the recent populist context. It argues that growing political-populist polarization and the resulting radicalization of discourses are intensified by the massive use of digital platforms, which reshape processes of subjectivation and directly influence political processes and societal mobilizations. Methodologically, the study employs an interdisciplinary theoretical framework to discuss how algorithmic dynamics promote engagement through affects of exclusion, fostering the expansion of extremist discourses. Building on this review and recent political developments, the article explores three key hypotheses: the instrumentalization of anti-establishment criticism, political technicism, and the construction of radical polarization as a mobilization strategy. As a theoretical-analytical proposition, the discussion underscores the central role of major technology corporations in shaping public opinion, structuring digital communication spaces that promote antagonisms and reinforce polarized interaction patterns. Furthermore, it shows that neoliberal governmentality, sustained by these technologies, cultivates a competitive rationality that fuels the rise of populist discourses and strengthens extremist ideologies. The originality of this reflection lies in its effort to articulate diverse theories and concepts to explain the role of digital platforms in contemporary political dynamics, particularly in the reconfiguration of extremism. By demonstrating the interdependence between technopolitics and extremisms, this article contributes to debates on the challenges of democracy in the digital age and in the current populist moment, stressing the need for a critical approach to address the social impacts of algorithmic infrastructures. 

Keywords | algorithmic governmentality; platformization; political extremism; populism; technopolitics

Tecnopolíticas e configurações extremistas na era das plataformas digitais

Resumo | Como artigo de abertura do dossiê “Configurações extremistas na América Latina na era das plataformas digitais”, este texto desenvolve uma reflexão teórico- analítica sobre a reconfiguração do extremismo contemporâneo, considerando a dataficação da vida, a plataformização e a governamentalidade algorítmica no recente contexto populista. Argumenta-se que a crescente polarização político-populista e a consequente radicalização de discursos são intensificadas pelo uso massivo de plataformas digitais, que reconfiguram modos de subjetivação e influenciam diretamente processos políticos e mobilizações societárias. Metodologicamente, mobiliza-se um referencial teórico interdisciplinar para discutir como as dinâmicas algorítmicas promovem engajamento por meio de afetos segregativos, favorecendo a ampliação de discursos extremistas. A partir dessa revisão e da consideração de processos políticos recentes, exploram-se três hipóteses: a instrumentalização da crítica ao establishment, o tecnicismo político e a construção de uma polarização radical como estratégia de mobilização. Como proposta teórico-analítica, os resultados desta discussão sustentam que as grandes corporações tecnológicas desempenham papel central na formação da opinião pública, ao estruturar espaços de comunicação digital que incentivam antagonismos e reforçam padrões de interação polarizados. Indicam, ainda, que a governamentalidade neoliberal, sustentada por essas tecnologias, fomenta uma racionalidade concorrencial que se expressa na ascensão de discursos populistas e no fortalecimento de ideologias extremistas. A originalidade desta reflexão reside na busca por uma articulação entre distintas teorias e conceito para compreender o papel das plataformas digitais na dinâmica política contemporânea, sobretudo na reconfiguração do extremismo. Assim, ao demonstrar a interdependência entre tecnopolítica e extremismos, este artigo contribui para os debates sobre os desafios da democracia na era digital e no atual momento populista, ressaltando a necessidade de uma abordagem crítica para enfrentar os impactos sociais das infraestruturas algorítmicas.

Palavras-chave | extremismo político; governamentalidade algorítmica; plataformização; populismo; tecnopolítica

Tecnopolíticas y configuraciones extremistas en la era de las plataformas digitales

Resumen | Como artículo de apertura del dosier “Configuraciones extremistas en América Latina en la era de las plataformas digitales”, este texto desarrolla una reflexión teórico-analítica sobre la reconfiguración del extremismo contemporáneo, considerando la datificación de la vida, la plataformización y la gubernamentalidad algorítmica en el reciente contexto populista. Se argumenta que la creciente polarización político-populista y la consecuente radicalización de discursos se intensifican con el uso masivo de plataformas digitales, que reconfiguran modos de subjetivación e influyen directamente en procesos políticos y movilizaciones sociales. Metodológicamente, se moviliza un referencial teórico interdisciplinario para discutir cómo las dinámicas algorítmicas promueven la participación a través de afectos segregativos favoreciendo la expansión de discursos extremistas. A partir de esta revisión y de la consideración de procesos políticos recientes, se exploran tres hipótesis: la instrumentalización de la crítica al establishment, el tecnicismo político y la construcción de una polarización radical como estrategia de movilización. Como propuesta teórico-analítica, los resultados de la presente discusión sostienen que las grandes corporaciones tecnológicas desempeñan un papel central en la formación de la opinión pública estructurando espacios de comunicación digital que incentivan antagonismos y refuerzan patrones de interacción polarizados. Asimismo, indican que la gubernamentalidad neoliberal, sostenida por estas tecnologías, fomenta una racionalidad competitiva que se traduce en el ascenso de discursos populistas y en el fortalecimiento de ideologías extremistas. La originalidad de esta reflexión reside en la búsqueda de una articulación entre distintas teorías y conceptos para comprender el papel de las plataformas digitales en la dinámica política contemporánea, sobre todo en la reconfiguración del extremismo. Así, al demostrar la interdependencia entre tecnopolítica y extremismos, este artículo aporta a los debates sobre los desafíos de la democracia en la era digital y en el actual momento populista resaltando la necesidad de un enfoque crítico para enfrentar los impactos sociales de las infraestructuras algorítmicas. 

Palabras clave | extremismo político; gubernamentalidad algorítmica; plataformización; populismo; tecnopolítica

Introduction

With the transformations that have taken place over the last two decades of the 21st century—driven above all by societal polarization and the intensified use of the internet and digital platforms—phenomena such as the datafication of life (Lemos 2021), data colonialism (Silveira 2021), and platformization (Van Dijck et al. 2018) have become increasingly evident. In this context, we face the prospect of having our behaviors shaped by artificial intelligence (Zuboff 2020), which operates not only in the economic sphere but also in politics (Da Empoli 2019) and in the everyday lives of a significant portion of the population. Today, many people communicate, access information, and build relationships through smartphones, computers, and other electronic devices mediated by digital platforms (Rosa et al. 2023).

However, this does not mean that other media and information channels have become obsolete, nor that alternative modes of subjectivation beyond the domain of digital platforms have disappeared. On the contrary, they coexist. What we have observed, however, is a certain technopolitical updating1 (Sabariego 2018; Sabariego and Sierra Caballero 2022) of these forces and their consequent algorithmic governmentality2 (Rouvroy and Berns 2015; Rosa 2019). This directly shapes communicational experiences, processes of social mobilization—intensifying polarization and the emergence of new forms of organization and political action—and, more broadly, contemporary politics.

With the intensification of digital platform use in the 21st century, a growing body of academic literature has examined—and empirically verified—how user behavior on advertising platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and YouTube has influenced political, economic, and cultural debates. These dynamics have had direct repercussions on electoral campaigns, strategies designed to amplify or antagonize public debate, and new forms of activism within contexts of extremism. Taken together, this evidence suggests that we are living in the era of advanced informational societies.

Unlike the informational societies of the 1970s to 1990s—described by Castells (2010) as emerging from the transition of Western industrial societies and marked by advances in information and communication technologies, including the first personal computers, digital networks, and the beginnings of the digitization of life3—in the advanced informational societies that have taken shape since the 2000s, we observe the “datafication of life.” As Lemos explians, although “processes of digitalization continue to take place (creating a website, quantifying the number of steps a person takes per day, converting a printed book into an e-book, among others), they are now embedded in broader algorithmic procedures of data processing and capture (Big Data, machine learning)” (2021, 194). This indicates that, beyond quantification, “datafication enables the conversion of any and all actions into traceable digital data, producing diagnostics and inferences across multiple domains” (2021, 194).

It is not, therefore, a matter of the “conversion of an analog object into a digital one, but rather the modification of actions, behaviors, and knowledge based on the performance of data processed by systems of algorithmic intelligence” (Lemos 2021, 194). In an even more radical movement in relation to digitalization, Lemos further argues that “datafication is the translation of intentions, actions, reflexes, and feelings into operationalizable data to generate new predictive actions (collective or individual) from the extensive collection of information” (2021, 195).

This centrality of datafication in contemporary social dynamics reveal why, as Van Dijck et al. (2018) highlight, advanced informational societies can be characterized as “platform societies.” In them, data collection and processing constitute the foundation upon which digital platforms expand their presence in economic sectors and in multiple spheres of social and political life, promoting a complex reorganization of practices and cultural constructions. This reorganization should not be regarded as something strange or anomalous.

Already in the 1940s, Herbert Marcuse (1999) revealed the details of the connection between production and communication technologies, the expansion of political power and capitalism, as well as the relations of domination established in that historical moment. In this effort, he diagnosed the emergence of a type of uncritical individuality, grounded in a competitive and efficiency-driven rationality, suited to the demands of free-market society and to the dynamics of capitalism. According to Marcuse (1999), the fragility of democracy at the time, combined with the consolidation of a paradigm of individuality forged, among other factors, through the emergence of new technologies, had enabled the strengthening of far-right ideas and political radicalization, culminating in the rise of fascisms.

In the contemporary context—marked by the consolidation of the neoliberal project, whose premises have spilled over from the political-economic sphere into all domains of life (Dardot and Laval 2016)—new online technologies, like those of the past, have assumed an important role. Neoliberal capitalism has depended—and continues to rely—on technologies to impose and normalize competition as the dominant mode of conduct and the company model as the prevailing form of subjectivation (Amaral 2018). Above all, this dependence centers on algorithmic online technologies.

Continuous communication through online devices, the targeting of information based on complex data breakdowns, as well as techniques of psychological modulation sustain neoliberal governmentality4. They do so by enabling ongoing processes of learning and discipline that produce the subjectivities on which it depends (Noguera-Ramírez 2011). Unsurprisingly, since the advent of the Liberal State, governmentality—as an art of governing, as Castro-Gómez (2015) reminds us—has always relied on technologies of power, production, signification, and of the self. In platform societies, these readily materialize in online algorithmic technologies, which, with great efficiency, generate the subjectivities that underwrite neoliberal rationality. A clear symptom of this is the growing perception that automated relations are more trustworthy than non-automated ones—that is, than offline human experiences (Bridle 2021).

In its more general aspects, what we have observed is the gradual sedimentation of a social infrastructure structured around the digital, where platforms have become essential for maintaining everyday relations, mediating a large portion of interactions and granting power to a technological oligopoly5 (Van Dijck et al. 2018). In this new era, at least three major processes can be highlighted: “the conversion of any form of expression into operationalizable data (datafication); the stimulus toward the production, capture, and provision of such data (data capture) for mega-structures of hardware and software (platformization); and algorithmic agency for designing scenarios of action and induction” (Lemos 2021, 195).

In this new scenario, growing segments of the population are communicating, obtaining information, and establishing relationships through platforms. One of the results, as observed by Van Dijck et al. (2018), Zuboff (2020), and Rosa et al. (2024), is that nearly everything has been transformed into data and into diverse mechanisms of monitoring, inducement, and control, generating direct effects on our actions, emotions, and political experiences—especially when we consider the growing power of big techs (Morozov 2018). Thus, as a total social fact in the sense attributed by Marcel Mauss (1974), researchers from different regions, representing the most diverse fields of knowledge and supported by varied theoretical and methodological perspectives, have begun to recognize the complexity and the effects promoted by digital platforms, whether in the economic-technological sphere (Srnicek 2018; Zuboff 2020) or in the social, cultural, and political spheres (Castells 2018; Chamayou 2020; Gerbaudo 2019).

Confronted with this new era and the challenges poses to analysts across different fields of knowledge, this article—conceived as a problem-oriented text for the dossier “Extremist Configurations in Latin America in the Era of Digital Platforms”—offers reflections and insights to advance ongoing debates and to inform new research on contemporary extremist (re)configurations. With this in mind, the dossier welcomed theoretical contributions and studies derived from empirical research around the following theoretical-analytical axes: (i) the use of digital platforms and digital activism for electoral purposes in times of radicalization; (ii) methodological or analytical innovations for the study of contemporary political extremisms; (iii) new forms of communication and structures of social mobilization in contexts of political antagonism; (iv) political, social, and economic dimensions in the context of extremism; (v) populism in the 21st century; (vi) discourses and representations involving class, race, gender relations, or sexuality; (vii) monopolization of digital platforms and its effects on political debate; and (viii) structures of data control and discourses of intolerance in terms of radicalization.

This concern is justified by the fact that the growing radicalization and the consequent polarization of political, economic, and cultural debate—intensified in the context of platform societies—have directly affected both the formal political sphere and the “politics of everyday life” of individuals. This has posed serious challenges not only to institutions but also to democratic social coexistence. In this sense, it becomes critical to consider the causal mechanisms of the emergence and political configuration of extremism in the context of platformization and its effects on politics and, more broadly, on social life. This highlights the need to learn how to deal with challenges that are only just beginning to emerge.

We have organized the article into two central sections, in addition to this introduction and the concluding remarks. The first section, entitled “Technopolitics and Extremist Configurations,” presents the theoretical context that grounds the reflection in this article. It highlights the role of segregative affects and the logic of engagement on digital platforms as driving elements of extremist discourses. In the second section, entitled “Three Hypotheses for Debate,” the text systematically outlines arguments on the emergence and consolidation of populist and illiberal tendencies. It discusses how criticism of the establishment, political technicism, and the construction of radical polarization have contributed to the current crisis scenario. Together, these sections offer an integrated perspective for understanding the dynamics of power and the political challenges that emerge in the era of platformization.

Technopolitics and Extremist Configurations

In his article “Psychology of Digital Masses and Analysis of the Democratic Subject,” Christian Dunker (2019) argues that the most significant risk to liberal democracies would be associated with discourses linked to what Theodor Adorno ([1950] 2019) called the “fascist syndrome,” in which the dominant affect would be sustained by “segregative hatred.” According to Dunker, there exists a kind of “dualistic reduction of subjects,” materialized in the leader–follower and winner–loser dyads, as well as “an essentialist projection of the enemy,” in which “mass identification predominates, along with a kind of hypnotic reaction of hatred that spreads by contagion” (Dunker 2019, 128). In this process, as Mouffe (2018) highlights, there is a crystallization of common affects, given that “affects and desire play a crucial role in the constitution of collective forms of identification” (2018, 40). These affects can be understood as some of the basic elements of contemporary extremist configurations, often marked by a populist character—whether on the right or within the discursive field of the left (Costa et al. 2025; Laclau 2005; Lynch and Casimiro 2022; Mouffe 2018; Mudde 2020)—and today structured and disseminated through digital platforms (Da Empoli 2019; Rosa 2019; Nemer 2023). This is the critical point emphasized in this dossier.

This crystallization of common affects (Mouffe 2018) is driven by a segregative hatred (Dunker 2019) inherent to the process of societal polarization. This hatred manifests itself, for instance, in intolerance toward race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and political orientation. Intensified by digital platforms, this polarization operates through a hypnotic reaction that seems to corroborate Giuliano Da Empoli’s (2019) reading of the relationship between extremism and its political operation on social networks through algorithms and artificial intelligence.

According to Da Empoli, in the context dominated by corporate media such as newspapers, radio, and television, there was a centripetal tendency: the more consensual the candidate, the larger the coalitions and, consequently, the greater the available airtime for political advertising—and thus the higher the chances of being elected. The novelty of the present moment—marked by the rise of digital platforms and the “populist moment” (Mouffe 2018; Mudde 2020)—is the opposite, a centrifugal effect: the more radicalized, polarized, vehement, and violent the discourses circulating in these spaces, the greater the chances of achieving broad dissemination (Da Empoli 2019). As we have been discussing, the success of this phenomenon’s (re)production and political amplification draws on a range of grievances and the cultivation of shared affects and resentments, reducing the “enemy” to pure negativity, an absolute threat, while simultaneously structuring a process of political identification (Marques and Carlos 2025).

This seems to be the hallmark of contemporary extremist configurations: a symbiosis between politics, populism, segregative hatred, and platformization. As Cesarino points out, the “digital architecture of social media, as it has been configured according to the business models of the major corporations in the sector” (2019, 115), directly shapes the production of political-identity subjectivities and influences individuals’ political choices. It does so through the assimilation and circulation of discontent and resentment, giving rise to a form of “digital populism.”6

In this sense, it is necessary to move beyond interpretations that attribute the dissonances of the present moment solely political polarization. Rather, what we face is a complex process marked both by digital populisms and by new fascist experiences. Among the approaches that analyze the current configuration through readings of fascism, it is important to emphasize that this phenomenon should not be reduced to its classical historical form—that is, to the authoritarian or totalitarian regimes of the early twentieth century. From the perspective of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari ([1972] 2011; [1980] 2005), fascism constitutes a form of life, a constitutive trait of capitalist liberal democracies. It is a socially produced desire, generated through the exploitation of affects that arise from the conflicts inherent to these ways of life, and may manifest with greater or lesser intensity, producing effects in the political-governmental field (from the micropolitical to the macropolitical level7). Notably, neoliberal society provides fertile ground for the intensification of fascism (Hinkelammert 2018; Lazzarato 2019).

Despite the specificities of the current conjuncture, what is truly new in this approach is that the desire for fascism (materialized in racist, xenophobic, sexist, and other anti-democratic manifestations and actions) has been mobilized and intensified by a type of propaganda immensely more efficient than that employed in the first half of the twentieth century (Lazzarato 2019). In today’s configuration, this desire is produced and sustained by algorithmic technologies of big data processing. These technologies enable the targeted dissemination of content to specific audiences and also operate through psychological modulation. This modulation is constantly reinforced by engagement mechanisms—a resource that has gone beyond manipulation, the technique once used by earlier communication media to shape subjectivities (Cassino 2018; Donovan et al. 2019). In relation to the object of this article, and from this perspective, Lazzarato’s argument is corroborated when he states that “the new fascism is a cyberfascism” (2019, 4).

In sum, when examining the new extremist experiences and the resulting societal polarization across several countries over the past two decades, analysts have faced the challenge of identifying analytical and classificatory criteria capable of offering greater precision in tracing their emergence and transformations. A simple association with the authoritarian and totalitarian experiences of the last century—and with the analytical categories mobilized at that time—proves insufficient. As part of these efforts, and considering the distinct experiences of the current populist wave, without disregarding their contextual specificities, we may argue that this wave is best understood through at least three hypotheses, which are outlined below.

Three Hypotheses for Debate

The three hypotheses are closely interconnected and appear across different authors8. For analytical purposes, however, we have chosen to address their elements separately—even though they could be discussed as a single overarching hypothesis.

The first hypothesis addresses the construction of an anti-establishment political discourse as one of the causal mechanisms for explaining the current context. At its core, this discourse appears to question the effectiveness of institutional political participation (Gerbaudo 2023), contesting real popular sovereignty—one of the pillars of modern democratic thought (Blay 2021; Mouffe 2018; Rancière 2014)—in the face of the power of political elites. This critique has underscored the declining trend in electoral support and participation, grounded in the argument of the “lack of representativeness of the people” (Eatwell and Goodwin 2020; Mouffe 2018; Mudde 2020; Rosanvallon 2021). Let us examine this more closely.

Although it has been a relatively common critique in democratic political debate at least since the post-World War II period, the anti-establishment discourse, with a right-wing populist orientation, became even more evident and decisive in electoral processes following the 2008 economic crisis (Mouffe 2018). In the political field itself, as Luz (2022) highlights, there are indications that this process began in 2014, when the conservative front—a bloc of far-right parties—won the majority of seats in the European Parliament. This group included parties such as the Five Star Movement (Italy), the True Finns Party, the Freedom Party of Austria, and the National Rally (France), which, despite their particularities, shared values such as radical nationalism, anti-immigration policies, and support for leaving the European Union. Additional evidence of this trend can be seen in Brexit (2016); the rise of the far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who reached the second round of the French presidential elections in 2017 and 2022 with a strongly nationalist and anti-establishment discourse; and the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, also in 2016, on a platform hostile to immigrants, opposed to progressive gains in racial and gender equality, and marked by nationalist and anti-system rhetoric. The beginning of Trump’s second term, in this very year, appears to signal a further radicalization of this view. The novelty of the current anti-establishment discourse—and this is our invitation to debate—lies in the radical critique of the foundational elements of liberal democracy, in a context of (dis)information intensified by platforms and by the strong economic and political power of big techs.

Regarding democratic tension, we agree with Mouffe (2005 and 2018) on the liberal- technocratic argument of “post-politics” at the end of the 1990s and beginning of the 2000s:

The point of departure of my enquiry is our current unability to envisage the problems facing our societies in a political9 way. What I mean by that is that political questions are not mere technical issues to be solved by experts. [...]. I will argue that this incapacity to think politically is to a great extent due to the uncontested hegemony of liberalism [...]. My aim is to bring to the fore liberalism’s central deficiency in the political field: its negation of the ineradicable character of antagonism. (Mouffe 2005, 10, emphasis in the original)

What post-politics did, in favor of a “center politics” (the Third Way), was to deny what is inherent to democratic politics: antagonism. Promoting a “technocratic form of politics,” according to which “politics was not a partisan confrontation but the neutral management of public affairs” (Mouffe 2018, 10), post-politics “left [no space] for the citizens to have a real choice between different political projects and their role was limited to approving the ‘rational’ policies elaborated by those experts” (Mouffe 2018, 10). The result of this was the gradual “disaffection with democratic institutions, manifested [among other aspects] in the increasing level of abstention” (Mouffe 2018, 12, our addition).

This point is particularly relevant because it makes it possible to understand the conditions of possibility for the emergence of radical discourses eager to reclaim “the political” (cf. note 9): against the establishment and its elites, in defense of a politics of the people—that is, of ensuring the return of the people excluded from the political process10. It was in this “political vacuum” resulting from post-politics, and intensified by the “digital populist moment,” that extremist leaders and parties emerged, previously displaced from the center of gravity of the “technocratic form of politics,” with discourses critical of liberal institutions.

Mouffe’s (2018) critique of “post-politics”—understood as a technocratic form of management that stifles democratic antagonism—can be read in light of the role that digital platforms now play in disseminating extreme and populist discourses. If, on the one hand, “center politics” once minimized conflicts in the name of supposed rationality, on the other, the rise of social networks such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and WhatsApp catalyzes the radicalization of debate. This occurs because, in the algorithmic logic of these platforms, engagement around strong emotions—such as indignation or hatred—tends to be rewarded with greater visibility (Da Empoli 2019; Srnicek 2018).

Thus, the anti-establishment critique becomes especially powerful in this environment, since discourses that promise to expose conspiracies, internal enemies, and the supposed hypocrisy of traditional elites find an audience predisposed to reject technocratic consensuses and embrace conspiratorial visions (Gerbaudo 2019; Mouffe 2018). As a result, practices of polarization—centered on “us versus them” narratives—spread vertiginously, fueling populist and illiberal tendencies (Mudde 2020), “especially with regard to minority rights, pluralism, and the rule of law” (Mudde 2016, 28).

In Latin America, the history of democratic rupture and crises of representation aggravates this scenario, as political leaders—mainly from the right, but also from antiliberal sectors of the left—resort to direct communication and virality to mobilize supporters and attack the establishment (Nemer 2021). Concepts such as surveillance capitalism (Zuboff 2020) and platform capitalism (Srnicek 2018) help us understand why these environments favor extremism: social networks are designed to maximize data capture and time spent online, so sensationalist and divisive content tend to be prioritized. The anti-establishment rhetoric, by questioning the legitimacy of institutions, fits perfectly within this logic, as it increases engagement while simultaneously intensifying uncertainty and distrust in the public sphere.

These observations are relevant considering that authors such as Mouffe (2018) do not directly address digital platforms. However, by bringing these debates together, one can recognize that democratic antagonism, far from presenting itself only as a rational debate mediated by institutions, is fueled by algorithms that reward confrontation and hate speech. It is in this confluence—between the hollowing out of effective democratic politics and the expansion of networks that amplify hatred and discredit—that, in many countries, the anti-establishment populist discourse has been consolidated, driven by the technopolitical machinery offered by digital environments.

The second hypothesis may be termed the “discourse of critique of political technicism”—some elements of which were anticipated in the previous paragraphs. Broadly speaking, this critique emerges when formal politics and its institutions are perceived as mere technical procedures, managed by career politicians who serve their own interests and those of the elites. This argument suggests that political technocracy empties democracy of its substantive content (the conflict between political projects), reducing it to a mere procedural game that serves to maintain the status quo (Mouffe 2018; Rancière 2014; Tormey 2019). Moreover, as Levitsky and Ziblatt (2018) emphasize, politics in its technocratic form tends to reinforce social and economic inequalities, since political decisions are frequently aligned with the interests of economic elites.

Supporting this critique, it is argued that political technicism tends to foster distrust not only toward the political system but also toward liberal democracy itself, while simultaneously casting doubt on the functioning of institutions. This dynamic can open space for the emergence and/or growth of radical (Chamayou 2020; Mudde 2020; Sodré 2023), fascist (Bernardo 2022; Lazzarato 2019; Rosa 2019, 2022; Stanley 2019), and/or populist parties and organizations (Blay 2021; Bruzzone 2021; Laclau 2005; Mouffe 2018; Rosanvallon 2021). Moreover, this distrust extends beyond formal political institutions to the very idea of democratic governance itself, giving rise to different forms of attacks on democracy.

The discussion on political technicism and the consequent distrust of democratic institutions finds fertile ground for amplification in the era of platform societies (Srnicek 2018; Van Dijck et al. 2018). If technicism tends to “sterilize” popular institutional participation, the dynamics of digital platforms—while decentralizing and simultaneously amplifying discourses that question liberal order and offer simplistic responses, often under an extreme populist guise—deepens this distrust and fosters another type of political participation. As a result, the insurgency of radical movements and the crisis of liberal democracy can no longer be explained solely through economic or institutional variables; it requires attention to the reconfiguration of public debate promoted by algorithmic interaction networks.

The reconfiguration of public debate in the current context must consider, above all, the mobilization of affects that occurs on the micropolitical plane. In the political arena, digital platforms operate by producing and modulating affects, especially negative ones. In this regard, the resentment factor must not be overlooked. Along these lines, it becomes imperative to engage with Wendy Brown’s (2019) perspective on the influence of the neoliberal regime in producing resentments of various kinds. According to the author, this dynamic manifests itself clearly in the case of the average white man who, unwilling to accept affirmative and inclusionary policies, comes to externalize hatred toward Black people, immigrants, and other minorities, on the grounds that he is “losing his rights,” which are, in fact, privileges. This privileged, alienated, and resentful white man undermines democracy when white supremacy itself is called into question11.

The proliferation of negative affects is not unique to platform society; it has also marked other historical periods. What is novel today, however, is that in the current conjuncture—through the potential of algorithmic technologies operating via psychological modulation—these negative affects that fuel nationalist, xenophobic, racist, and sexist ideas—often in repackaged forms—are being produced with greater speed, intensity, and on a massive scale. This is evinced by the simultaneous weakening of several Western democracies (Barbosa 2019; Dal Lago 2017; Rosa et al. 2021). This process also targets the formal institutions and procedures of liberal democracy.

Within this logic, big techs (Google, Meta, Twitter/X, etc.) structure a communicational ecosystem that stimulates attention, emotional reactions, and the formation of affinity “bubbles.” By rewarding content that generates engagement, such platforms inadvertently strengthen anti-system agendas—of fascist, populist, or ultraconservative orientation (Da Empoli 2019). Thus, what was until recently a diffuse discrediting of institutions has become a militant discourse against the “system,” amplified exponentially by recommendation algorithms and audience-segmentation tools (Zuboff 2020).

Thus, in discussing political technicism and distrust toward liberal democracy, one cannot ignore that this informational environment gives voice and resonance to radical actors. And this is precisely one of the central axes of this dossier: understanding how technopolitics affects populism and the crisis of democracy, by exploring the dynamics of political propaganda, mobilization, and antagonism that are felt in the digital sphere.

Still in this regard, this crisis of trust in democratic institutions, as Mudde (2020) observes, has served as fertile ground for the emergence of narratives questioning the legitimacy and effectiveness of the current political system. At this very moment, both in the Americas and in Europe, this climate of distrust has been exploited by radical movements and leaders who propose simplistic and often authoritarian solutions to complex problems (Chamayou 2020; Sodré 2023). The critique of political technicism, therefore, is not only a rejection of bureaucratic practices but also a broader contestation of the existing power structure. It reveals a deep discontent with the way liberal democracy has been operationalized, leading to fundamental questions about the legitimacy of its institutions and the future of political governance.

In general terms, this critique has interpellated subjects by suggesting that “politics” (cf. note 9)—which should be grounded in the people’s will and oriented toward economic development—has become an arena dominated by inefficiency and, at times, by the co-optation and corruption of technocrats and career politicians acting against the actual needs and aspirations of the people. This discursive structure is obvious when considering the widespread sense of discontent in society, particularly in relation to the political-party system, political representation, and the functioning of democratic institutions—accused of being anti-popular, inefficient, and above all, corrupt. In Brazil, for instance, data from Latinobarómetro helps shed light on this broader context. When asked whether “the country was governed by powerful people for their own benefit or governed for the good of the people,” around 80% of respondents, in 2013, stated that the country was governed according to the interests of the powerful (Latinobarómetro 2013, 9). In the 2017 survey, this percentage rose to over 90%12 (Latinobarómetro 2017, 9).

Disenchantment is not unreasonable, given that the consolidation of the neoliberal project has exacerbated political, economic, and social problems inherent to capitalist democracy. It is worth remembering that, historically, capitalist democracies (which proved to be less degrading regimes than authoritarian ones) have preferentially safeguarded the economic interests of the bourgeois minority to the detriment of better living conditions for the majority of the population. This reality has always been at the root of discontent and was one of the factors demanding the implementation of government techniques capable of demobilizing dissent and controlling revolts (Frankenberg 2018). In this sense, little doubt remains that neoliberalism emerged as a counterrevolution, establishing itself primarily as a doctrine unsympathetic to popular participation in the management of public affairs, inclined to subsidize dictatorships as long as market freedom was respected—as admitted by its chief architect, the economist Friedrich von Hayek (1981), in an interview with the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio.

It should be emphasized, however, that the defense of the people—mobilized both by anti-establishment discourse and by the critique of political technicism—does not itself constitute the object of political action for either of the two political spectrums. The people, as Laclau (2005) points out, are a political construction. As floating signifiers, the discourse of critique of political technicism and the elements of anti-establishment discourse are appropriated by both progressive and conservative discursive fields, albeit with different meanings.

In the conservative field, these critiques often manifest as a rejection of the political elite and institutions, which come to be described as excessively bureaucratic—or even co-opted by parties or ideological groups13—and distant from citizens’ concerns. Right-wing populist leaders and movements such as Donald Trump in the United States, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil14, and Javier Milei in Argentina commonly denounce “career politics” and technocracy as symbols of a corrupt and ineffective system, inherent to the public machinery, and one that does not represent the aspirations of the people/patriots (Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018; Marques and Carlos 2025; Mudde 2020).

Within the progressive political spectrum, by contrast, these critiques interpret technocracy as a mechanism for concentrating power in the hands of economic and political elites, thereby perpetuating social and economic inequalities. For this field, technocracy depoliticizes essential issues of both “politics” and “the political,” reducing political debates into technical matters that fail to reflect popular struggles and demands for a deeper democracy—one that ensures popular participation in moments and spaces of political decision-making. Moreover, theorists such as Chantal Mouffe (2018), Ernesto Laclau (2005), and Jacques Rancière (1999, 2014), for example, argue for the need to “repoliticize democratic politics,” placing popular demands and the conflict inherent to democracy at the center of the political process, thereby creating space to challenge elite hegemony.

It should be noted, however, that although critiques from both political-ideological spectrums may converge in their dissatisfaction with the “liberal consensus” (Mouffe 2018; Rancière 1999, 2014), they diverge in their proposed solutions and underlying ideologies. While the right may seek nationalist and authoritarian solutions, constituting an “exclusive populism,” the left tends to defend greater democratic participation and the redistribution of power and resources, informing an “inclusive populism”—hence authors such as Mouffe’s (2018) defense of a “left populism.”15

In sum, the discourse critiquing political technicism—particularly within the conservative field—has found in the rise of digital platforms, marked by the datafication of life (Lemos 2021), data colonialism (Silveira 2021), and the platformization of social relations (Van Dijck et al. 2018), new conditions to expand its reach. This is because, while in the past there was greater institutional control over the dissemination of information, today an ever-larger portion of the population obtains information through devices mediated by artificial intelligence (Zuboff 2020), intensifying polarization and reinforcing anti-system discourses (Da Empoli 2019). In this scenario, a technopolitical updating (Sabariego 2018; Sabariego and Sierra Caballero 2022) takes place which, by activating algorithmic governmentality (Rouvroy and Berns 2015; Rosa 2019), has been able to modulate practices of engagement and political mobilization, imposing new challenges on liberal democracy and classical political organizations.

The third hypothesis points to efforts aimed at social polarization, carried out through the discursive evocation of an enemy and the construction of a common collective identity: the people (Gerbaudo 2023; Laclau 2005; Morelock and Narita 2019; Mouffe 2018; Tormey 2019). The outcome of this process is the demarcation of antagonistic discursive fields, whose tendency is to shift the idea of “adversarial struggle,” inherent to liberal democracy, into a “struggle between enemies” (Caldeira Neto 2022; Chamayou 2020; Mouffe 2012).

The populist phenomenon, understood as “a form of reactive mobilization of the people against an enemy, which it identifies as a restrictive force on its political, economic, cultural, and moral identity” (Luz 2022, 68), always arises by indicating the paths for the reestablishment of sociopolitical order through the defense of the people and their return to the place of power. It is precisely for this reason, as Mendonça and Machado (2021) highlight, that populism and democracy can (con)fuse—far-right populism can present itself as democratic, even while being radically illiberal:

Even though in the torrent of recent works on populism there is a prominent place for critical productions that link the phenomenon to a threat to democracy, there are nonetheless authors who see in populist discourse, on the contrary, a gap for the deepening of democratic values. At the very least, these authors recognize that the relationship between populism and democracy is full of ambiguities and that the core of the populist political form is not, in itself, necessarily democratizing or authoritarian. Thought of in these terms, populism becomes a phenomenon that must be analyzed in its concrete manifestations as a logic of articulation of political discourse that can relate in the most diverse ways to democracy. In fact, democracy, as government of the people, would always be open to the possibility of populist articulation, which seeks to bring the people back to the center stage of politics, even if its consequences may turn in the opposite direction, reinforcing authoritarianism. (Mendonça and Machado 2021, 11)

Nevertheless, what we have observed in recent extremist configurations, both in the Americas and in Europe, are waves of exclusive populisms. The success of this emergence hinges on the figure of the populist leader, who may be an individual, a “name,” or even an organization (e.g., a political party). It is the role of populist leadership to drive mobilizations, to foster networks of affects (sharing frustrations and repressed desires), to organize and direct the presented meanings to the point of achieving a societal division into radically antagonistic poles: on one side, the recognition of the people; on the other, of their enemy—the figure that embodies the impossibility of the people’s full realization (Laclau 2005; Mouffe 2018).16 But, after all, who are the people?

This indeterminacy occurs because populism, as a radically political configuration, is not an ideology or a political regime, nor does it refer to a pre-discursive people. On the contrary, it is a “discursive strategy for constructing a political frontier, dividing society into two camps and appealing to the mobilization of the ‘excluded’ against ‘those in power’” (Mouffe 2018, 31). The people, therefore, are:

not a static category, one that can be measured in economic and/or sociological terms. The ‘people’ is always a discursive construction and, as such, varies according to the most diverse populist experiences, regardless of ideological criteria […]. The people can be the discourse of the poor against the rich, but it can also be that of nationals against foreigners, nationalists against ‘traitors of the homeland,’ workers against capitalists, and so on. The fundamental point is that discursive articulation must be able to name the people against their enemy. (Lopes and Mendonça 2013, 12, emphasis in the original)

Thus understood, populism also cannot be perceived as a “type of movement — identifiable with either a special social base or a particular ideological orientation”17 (Laclau 2005, 117, emphasis in the original). On the contrary, as we have argued, it “can take various ideological forms according to both time and place, and is compatible with a variety of institutional frameworks” (Mouffe 2018, 12). This is because, as Mouffe goes on to explain, the “chain chain of equivalence through which the ‘people’ is going to be constituted will depend on the historical circumstances,” (2018, 30) indicating that its “dynamics cannot be determined in isolation from all contextual reference” and that the people “are not a homogeneous subject in which all the differences are somehow reduced to unity” (Mouffe 2018, 34).

The integration between the discussions on the indeterminacy of the people in populism and the current scenario of far-right populist extremism necessarily involves recognizing that contemporary societies are not organized solely around traditional institutional or ideological logics. They are also structured under a technopolitical framework, in which digital platforms and algorithmic governmentality (Rosa 2019; Rouvroy and Berns 2015) influence the struggle over the “meaning of the people” and amplify social polarization. If, on the one hand, populism creates binary divisions (“us versus them”), on the other, digital networks—by privileging emotionally charged and algorithmically attention-grabbing content—accentuate the hypervisibility of leaders who legitimize themselves as bearers of a supposed “popular will” (Mouffe 2018), even when they embody authoritarian and deeply illiberal visions.

Thus, far-right populism, shaped by the crystallization of common affects (Mouffe 2018) and driven by discourses of hatred (Adorno [1950] 2019; Dunker 2019) and distrust in democratic institutions, finds complicity in a context in which decisions and interactions are heavily mediated by algorithms, big data, and social networks (Da Empoli 2019; Zuboff 2020). That is, the process of “naming the enemy” (Chamayou 2020) and constructing antagonistic collective identities is propelled by digital tools, which not only allow for the segmentation of messages according to audience profiles but also make it easier to disseminate radicalized content (Morozov 2011). This convergence between “populism of strong symbolic character” and the “platformization of politics” intensifies the construction of “chains of equivalence” (Mouffe 2018) capable of integrating heterogeneous agendas under the banner of an illusorily homogeneous people.

Added to this is the critique of technicism: if liberal institutions and traditional politics are perceived as merely technical or incapable of providing effective responses to popular demands, the vacuum that emerges favors discursive eruptions that question not only conventional parties but the very legitimacy of democratic authorities (Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018; Mudde 2020). The populist leader thus appears as one who “breaks” with technocratic coldness and “speaks the language of the people,” while simultaneously making use of the most advanced technologies (microtargeting, artificial intelligence, segmented advertising, etc.) to emotionally mobilize specific segments of society. This paradox—the adoption of cutting-edge technological tools to fight against the “technocracy of the elites”—constitutes an essential mark of the digital populist phenomenon in the era of platforms.

These are not, therefore, isolated phenomena: big techs structure an attention ecosystem (Srnicek 2018; Zuboff 2020) in which populist leaders and hate groups disseminate polarization discourses, shaping a radical adversarial dynamic (Caldeira Neto 2022). Thus, the populist configuration described by authors such as Laclau (2005) and Mouffe (2018)—centered on conflict and on the construction of a “people” against “another”—finds in digital networks a field of amplification. In this sense, technopolitics (Sabariego and Sierra Caballero 2022) becomes crucial: without it, we cannot explain why these seemingly disconnected movements gain such transnational strength, especially within liberal democracies facing crises of credibility.

In sum, the interweaving of populist theory, the critique of technicism, and the role of digital platforms suggests that the emergence of contemporary extremisms can be understood as the synergy between a discourse that mobilizes affects (anger, fear, discontent, etc.) and a communication infrastructure designed to maximize the virality of radical content (Da Empoli 2019). This arrangement simultaneously generates the possibility of “communicating directly” with the masses (reducing the mediation of the traditional press, viewed as elitist) and of reinforcing discursive antagonisms, making the frontier between the people and their enemies increasingly evident. In this scenario, the “discursive strategy of constructing a political frontier” (Mouffe 2018, 31) comes to operate, literally, through algorithms, leading to a radicalization that redefines the parameters of democratic contestation.

Thus, for an adequate understanding of today’s extremist configuration, it is also necessary to consider the transformations that took place in the transition from the twentieth to the twenty-first century—transformations involving communication media, access to information, and the emergence of new electronic devices, especially digital platforms (Beiguelman 2021; Bruno et al. 2018; Cassino et al. 2021; Cesarino 2022; Van Dijck et al. 2018; Fisher 2023; Nemer 2021; Srnicek 2018; Zuboff 2020). This is because, as noted in the introduction, platformization extends beyond the economic dimension, channeling our interests toward commercial purposes. It also encompasses a political dimension, directly shaping this sphere and driving changes in electoral patterns and dynamics, as well as in political action strategies across various countries, through the instrumentalization of artificial intelligence, algorithms, bots, fake profiles, and human interventions.

Final Considerations

As discussed throughout this article, the current wave of political extremism and the intensification of populist discourses in the era of digital platforms can be traced to at least three factors, whose interconnections are key to understanding of the phenomenon.

First, the anti-establishment discourse, fueled by the 2008 global economic crisis and the widespread discrediting of liberal institutions. This discourse thrived in societies marked by uncertainty, offering simplistic or authoritarian answers to complex problems. As authors such as Mouffe (2018), Mudde (2020), and Levitsky and Ziblatt (2018) note, the rejection of “career politics” and the “liberal consensus” is presented as a “truly popular” alternative, promising to return power to the people supposedly usurped by elites. This discourse, however, is not tied to a single ideological current: both right-wing and left-wing sectors appropriate the anti-establishment argument, generating “exclusive populisms” and “inclusive populisms.”

Second, the critique of political technicism—which Chantal Mouffe (2018) attributes to the hollowing out of democratic antagonism—deepens distrust in institutions. Technocratic pragmatism and the suppression of conflicts, in an effort to frame essentially political questions as “technical” ones, frustrate segments of the electorate seeking greater participation and ideological confrontation. This vacuum enables the rise of leaders who present themselves as authentic spokespersons of the people, exposing the fragility of liberal democracy that sought to neutralize antagonism in favor of a “center politics.” The problem intensifies when popular motivations are manipulated through discourses of hatred and the essentialization of an enemy (racial, political, cultural), falling into the “fascist syndrome” described by Adorno ([1950] 2019) and revisited by Dunker (2019).

Finally, the rise of digital platforms as the primary arena of political contestation has reconfigured the very foundations of public debate. Phenomena such as the datafication of life (Lemos 2021), data colonialism (Silveira 2021), and platformization (Van Dijck et al. 2018) have enabled behavioral modulation through algorithms and artificial intelligence (Zuboff 2020). These technological resources intensify polarization, as they privilege engagement and emotional reactions. Fake profiles, bots, and microtargeting strategies have become widely employed in electoral campaigns and political movements, expanding the reach of extremist ideas (Nemer and Marks 2025). Thus, populist leaders—whether on the right or the left—exploit algorithmic logic to reinforce the antagonism between “us” and “them,” leading liberal democracies to coexist with a new modality of political conflict: one mediated, customized, and often radicalized by digital tools.

It is essential to recognize that the capacity to constitute a people—in opposition to technocratic elites or minority groups—gains extraordinary force within the big tech ecosystem (Srnicek 2018). In this environment, far-right populist rhetoric polarizes the political field, delegitimize institutions, and fosters a perception of a permanent crisis. As a result, the very core of the liberal democratic repertoire—pluralism, respect for minorities, and the rule of law—comes under question. Understanding this scenario requires acknowledging that debates on technopolitics, algorithmic governmentality, and the datafication of society are not peripheral but central dimensions of today’s democratic crisis. Only by connecting these discussions with populism theory and with analyses of the weakening of liberal institutions can we begin to outline more effective strategies for both renewing the public sphere and containing the anti-democratic tendencies that have consolidated in the twenty-first century.

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✽ This article was written specifically for this special issue and did not receive external funding. All four authors contributed equally to the writing of the article.

1 “Technopolitics” refers to the intersection between technology and politics, highlighting how technological regimes are not neutral but rather social constructions permeated by power relations. More than the mere tactical use of technology for political purposes, technopolitics involves the struggle for control over informational flows, the configuration of civic participation dynamics, and the reconfiguration of democratic spaces within the digital environment. Its study requires examining both mechanisms of domination and surveillance, as well as practices of resistance and counterpower enabled by digital technologies.

2 “Algorithmic governmentality” refers to a new regime of power based on the massive data collection, analysis, and correlation (big data) in order to anticipate and influence individual and collective behaviors. Unlike traditional forms of government, this modality bypasses discursive and legal mediation, operating through probabilistic patterns that affect reality without the need for direct interpellation of subjects. This normative logic is not grounded in subjectivity or law, but rather in processes of continuous tracking and modeling of social life, promoting a discreet and predictive form of control that is often imperceptible to individuals (Rouvroy and Berns 2015).

3 As Castells observes, the social changes of that period were “as dramatic as the technological and economic processes of transformation” (2010, 2), and their emergence definitively marked a new informational mode of development, in which “the source of productivity lies in the technology of knowledge generation, information processing, and symbol communication” (2010, 17). It is this “mode of development informational, constituted by the emergence of a new technological paradigm based on information technology” (2010, 17), that Castells designates as the “informational society.”

4 Formulated by Foucault ([1979] 2008), “neoliberal governmentality” refers to a rationality of government that extends market logic to all spheres of life, interpellating individuals as “entrepreneurs of themselves” and orienting state action toward creating and maintaining conditions of competition. For further discussion of the concept, see Noguera-Ramírez (2011) and Castro-Gómez (2015).

5 “Technological oligopoly” refers to the concentration of control over digital infrastructures and informational flows in the hands of a small number of large technology corporations. This phenomenon is driven by the dominance of global platforms such as Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft (the “big five”), which operate as gatekeepers of the digital economy, setting standards, regulating access, and amassing vast volumes of data to consolidate their influence. This oligopoly both restricts competition and redefines the relations between governments, markets, and civil society, posing challenges to digital sovereignty and the public interest (Van Dijck et al. 2018).

6 Building on Laclau and Mouffe, Cesarino (2019) develops the concept of digital populism to highlight the “particularities and effects of the contemporary digitalization of the classical populist mechanism,” articulating this concept with “notions from cybernetics, systems theory, and anthropological theory” (2019, 92). The mobilization of this concept is employed to refer “both to a (digital) media apparatus and to a (discursive) mechanism (of mobilization) and a (political) tactic of constructing hegemony” (2019, 95), operative in the mobilization of affects, political identification, and, more broadly, in the production of political-identity subjectivities. In digital populism, according to Cesarino, “non-human agencies, such as ‘emotional algorithms,’ come to play an important part in this mobilizing function, or in the production of equivalence, through affects” (2019, 100).

7 In summary, it can be inferred that all societies and subjects are traversed by two interrelated segmentarities: one molar, binary, homogeneous, and tied to rigid structures (the State, parties, institutions); and another molecular, fluid, linked to intensities, affects, and the production of desires. Both operate on the macropolitical and micropolitical levels, the latter being the space in which perceptions, behaviors, and, above all, the desire for fascism are shaped (Deleuze and Guattari [1980] 2005). According to the authors, “it is too easy to be antifascist on the molar level, and not even see the fascist inside you [...] with molecules both personal and collective” ([1980] 2005, 215), which is why fascism breaks historical boundaries. Thus, fascist desire is not restricted to instituted politics but infiltrates everyday practices—such as racism, xenophobia, sexism, and hatred of the poor—revealing the perverse potency of micropolitics.

8 We seek to systematize the debate and advance on specific points. For further reading on these hypotheses, see, for example, Da Empoli (2019), Frankenberg (2018), Gerbaudo (2023), Levitsky and Ziblatt (2018), Mouffe (2005 and 2018), Mudde (2020), Rancière (2014), and Srnicek (2018).

9 The notion of “the political” refers to “the dimension of antagonism which I take to be constitutive of human societies” (Mouffe 2005, 9). By “politics,” the author understands “the set of practices and institutions through which an order is created, organizing human coexistence in the context of conflictuality provided by the political” (Mouffe 2005, 9). We cannot think of “the political” and “politics” as separate, nor advocate the elimination of the former in favor of the latter. On the contrary, “the political” and “politics” mutually constitute one another (Marques 2023a; 2023b).

10 Corroborating Laclau, it is understood that the people are always a political construction formed through the “formation of an internal antagonistic frontier separating the ‘people’ from power” (2005, 74). In this sense, Mouffe argues that populism “can take various ideological forms according to both time and place, and is compatible with a variety of institutional frameworks” (2018, 12). This indicates that its “dynamics cannot be determined in isolation from all contextual reference” and that the people “are not a homogeneous subject in which all the differences are somehow reduced to unity” (Mouffe 2018, 34).

11 This is the same analytical framework applied by Silva (2018) in his reading of the cycle of Brazilian protests between 2013 and 2016, understood as the “return” moment of a far-right proud of its political identity. In the Brazilian case, corroborating the author’s argument, the right wing, resentful of advances in social agendas—especially those related to LGBTQIA+ rights, Human Rights, and sexuality—took advantage of the political opportunities opened up in the context of the 2013 mobilizations and the criticisms of the Workers’ Party government to express its discontent and resentments. We agree with the assessment that the gains achieved “during the Workers’ Party governments in terms of recognition and/or redistribution policies […] produced social changes that were interpreted as threats by conservative segments of Brazilian society” (Silva 2018, 95), which helps us understand the return of pride in a right wing that had previously been “ashamed.” For further reading on this, see Souza (1988) and Caldeira Neto (2017).

12 In 2023, this percentage fell sharply to 54.2%. Nonetheless, it remains high among younger people aged 15 to 25 (63.3%) (Latinobarómetro 2023). This overall reduction may, in fact, reflect the “populist moment,” considering that political discourses tend to operate on the basis of the empty signifier “the people”—a hypothesis that may be explored in future research.

13 This field tends to see as ideological only its antagonistic field. For this reading, see Marques (2021).

14 On the emergence of technopolitical conservatism in Brazil and its connection with the attention economy and cultural wars, see: Rosa et al. (2025) and Souza and Rosa (2023). Specifically on the emergence of bolsonarismo, see Marques and Carlos (2025).

15 For a synthesis of Mouffe’s left populism, see Costa et al. (2025)

16 For a discussion on populist leadership, see Marques and Carlos (2025).

17 Populism, thus understood, can assume both authoritarian-exclusive contours, as observed in the experiences of Trump (United States), Orbán (Hungary), and Bolsonaro (Brazil), and democratic-inclusive ones, as in the construction of Podemos (Spain) or Syriza (Greece).

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Marcelo de Souza Marques

PhD in Sociology from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Professor in the Graduate Program in Social Sciences at the Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo (UFES), Brazil. Researcher in Participation and Democracy Center (UFES). Member of the Coordination of the Social Movements Research Committee of the Brazilian Society of Sociology. His research interests include interactions between the state and civil society (socio-state interactions), studies on collectives, discourse theory, memory, cultural public policies, and cultural democracy. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2395-0191 | marcelo.marques.cso@gmail.com

David Nemer

PhD in Computing, Culture, and Society from Indiana University, United States. Associate Professor in the Department of Media Studies and Affiliated Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Latin American Studies Program at the University of Virginia, United States. Associate Professor at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, United States. His research and teaching interests span the intersection between science and technology studies, anthropology of technology, ICTs for development, and disinformation studies. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8423-3917 | nemer@virginia.edu

Aknaton Toczek Souza

PhD in Law and Sociology from Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil. Professor in the Graduate Program in Social Policy and Human Rights at the Universidade Católica de Pelotas (UCPel), Brazil. He is the leader of the Social Laboratory for Justice Administration, Conflict, and Technology Research Group (UCPel). His main focus is on the following topics: public safety, sociology of criminal law and human rights, criminology and sociology of crime and violence, sociology of drugs, political sociology, neoconservatism and authoritarianism, anthropology of law, and public and social policies. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6946-6242 | aknatontoczek@gmail.com

Felipe Lazzari da Silveira

PhD and Master’s degree in Criminal Sciences from Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Professor and researcher in the Law course and in the Postgraduate Program in Law at the Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Brazil. Coordinator of research, extension, and teaching projects in the field of criminal sciences. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2738-6914 | felipe.lazzari@ufpel.edu.br