Feb 18, 2020
1:30pm - 3:30pm
Lecture by:
Paul Freston
In 2018, Brazil elected the far-right populist Jair Bolsonaro as president. Unlike most successful populists around the world, he promised an extreme neoliberal economic policy and was disproportionately supported by the better-off. His main electoral base among the poor was in the burgeoning evangelical community, with which he has strong familial ties. How destructive is this combination of neoliberalism and evangelicalism going to be for the Amazon rainforest, its indigenous peoples, and the global future?
Paul Freston is a sociologist. He is Chair in Religion and Politics in Global Context at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. He is also professor colaborador on the post-graduate programme in sociology at the Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Brazil. He has worked mainly on religion and politics, the growth of popular forms of Protestantism in Latin America, and questions of religion and globalization. His books include Evangelicals and Politics in Asia, Africa and Latin America (Cambridge University Press, 2001); Protestant Political Parties: A Global Survey (Ashgate, 2004); (ed.) Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Latin America (Oxford University Press, 2008); (co-edited) The Cambridge History of Religions in Latin America (Cambridge University Press, 2016); and (co-authored) Nem Anjos Nem Demônios: Interpretações Sociológicas do Pentecostalismo (Vozes, 1994).
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