Authoritarianism and corporatism in latin America: The first wave

This chapter deals with the diffusion of corporatism as an ideology and especially as a set of authoritarian institutions that spread across the interwar period in Latin America. In Brazil, convergence between the authoritarian corporatism of the Church and conservative politics was also clear, even with some convergence with the fascists of Plinio Salgado’s Brazilian Integralist Action. When looking at the European authoritarian models, those most mentioned in 1930s Latin America are the Portuguese New State, Italian Fascism and the Primo de Rivera dictatorship in Spain, with the Italian Labour Charter and corporatist representation as the main features. The chapter analyses the authoritarian wave of the 1930s in Latin America and its regimes, which were more diverse in nature and less institutionalized than their European counterparts. The New State established in Brazil by Getulio Vargas is the most paradigmatic case of the institutionalization of corporatism in an authoritarian setting in Latin America.