Radical Right and Political Subjectivity in Argentina. What is Behind the Vote for Javier Milei

Abstract

This paper addresses, from the “demand” point of view, one of the most impressive Radical Right—Vote—Political Subjectivity—Milei—Democracy phenomena of the political-electoral rise of the new Latin American right-wing: that of theself-styled “libertarians” of Argentina, grouped around the figure by Javier Milei. Based on data obtained from different surveys that were carried out between 2021 and 2022, we address different questions about what the vote for La Libertad Avanza expresses in terms of apossible political identity. Our findings show that i) we are not facing a fully constituted politicalsubjectivity that fully coincides with the electoral “offer” proposed by the libertarian leader, ii) but that it is an adherence to some of his proposals of neoliberal economic content, which iii) expresses anger with almost the entire political class and that iv) does not necessarily imply an agreementwith those more reactionary positions that define the “radical” character of this new political phenomenon.