Alberto Javier Olvera Rivera He is a researcher at the Institute for Historical-Social Research of the Universidad Veracruzana. Doctor in Sociology from the New School for Social Research. Member of the National System of Researchers and of the Mexican Academy of Sciences. They stand out in their work Civil society, public spaces and democratization in Latin America: Mexico, fce and uv, 2003; Democratization, accountability and civil society, Porrúa / ciesas / uv, 2006 (with Ernesto Isunza); The dispute over democratic construction in Latin America, fce / ciesas / uv, 2006 (with Evelina Dagnino and Aldo Panfichi); The frustrated democratization, ciesas / uv, 2010. He has published more than one hundred articles and book chapters in various countries, as well as popular books. He has been visiting professor at the Universities of California San Diego, York, Federal de Minas Gerais, Nacional de Colombia and flaccid-Mexico.

Coloquios interdisciplinarios

Populism and religion in Brazil and Mexico. A brief reflection

  • Alberto Javier Olvera Rivera

Keywords: Brazil, Mexico, Pentecostalism, populism, people.

Se analyze the relationship between populism, religion and politics, both on a theoretical level and in the cases of Brazil and Mexico. It begins with a critique of Joanildo Burity's article on "the Pentecostal people" in Brazil and the relevance of using Laclau's theory of populism to explain this phenomenon. The same arguments are then used to analyze, as a contrast, contemporary Mexican populism, embodied in President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, highlighting its religious background.