Brazil and the United States are the two largest democracies in the Western Hemisphere. Their political histories are distinct, but their societies are confronting several parallel transformations.
The Brazil Program at the Inter-American Dialogue hosted a panel discussion examining how these shifts are reshaping attitudes toward power, status, opportunity, and democracy in both countries as Brazil approaches its 2026 presidential election and the United States prepares for the 2026 midterms. The conversation explored where the Brazilian and U.S. experiences illuminate one another, where the comparison breaks down, and what both reveal about democracy under conditions of social and economic strain.
Moderated by Brazil Program Director Bruna Santos, the discussion featured Clifford Young, chair of Ipsos Public Affairs and senior fellow with the Brazil Program; Lucas de Souza Martins, professor and research fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA); Ana Carolina Evangelista, political scientist and researcher at the Institute for the Study of Religion (ISER); Ian V. Rowe, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI); and Debora Thome, political scientist and professor at the Brazilian Institute of Education, Development, and Research (IDP).
In her opening remarks, Dialogue President and CEO Rebecca Bill Chavez framed Brazil and the United States as two diverse democracies confronting parallel pressures. Santos emphasized the need to look beyond electoral outcomes to understand the evolving nature of these societies, noting that shifts in religion, family, gender, and economic security are impacting perceptions of democracy and trust in institutions.
The Roots of Polarization
Young argued that polarization in both countries should be understood in the context of a much longer social transformation. Over the past several generations, societies such as the United States and Brazil have become more educated and more progressive on questions including gender and race, generating backlash among groups unsettled by the pace or direction of cultural change.
The timing and intensity of that reaction, however, differ significantly. In the United States, Young traced the process to the 1970s and argued that political affiliation has since become deeply intertwined with social and cultural identity. In Brazil, polarization emerged later and remains more closely associated with factors such as region, class, and religion. It also tends to become particularly visible during elections rather than operating continuously in everyday social life.
Young cautioned against taking the comparison too far. Brazilian identities remain more multifaceted and less consistently organized around partisan affiliation than their U.S. counterparts.
The Artificial Origins of Brazil’s Party System
De Souza Martins traced some of Brazil’s contemporary political fragmentation to the historical development of its party system. Despite the existence of more than thirty registered political parties, he noted that presidential politics has increasingly organized itself around two broad political camps.
He also drew a parallel between the elections of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2002 and Barack Obama in 2008. Both candidacies generated significant expectations for political and social change, he argued, and governments’ inability to satisfy all those expectations contributed to subsequent disillusionment. In Brazil, he connected that frustration to the protests that erupted in 2013 and to broader dissatisfaction with political representation.
Religious Change and the Evangelical Vote
Evangelista argued that discussions of religion in Brazil are too often reduced to their electoral consequences. Religious communities, she said, are also important sources of social connection, identity, and belonging.
That role has become particularly important as Brazil’s religious composition has undergone a profound transformation. In the 1980s, Catholics represented roughly 89 percent of the population, evangelicals seven percent, and people with no religious affiliation two percent. Today, Catholics account for around half of Brazilians, evangelicals 29 percent, and the religiously unaffiliated 14 percent, while Afro-Brazilian religions have also grown.
At the same time, Evangelista emphasized that Brazil remains a highly religious society: roughly 81 percent of Brazilians describe themselves as people of faith and around 90 percent say they believe in God.
She also cautioned against treating evangelicals as a unified political constituency. Significant differences exist within evangelical communities, including among women, whose relationship with religion may be shaped by ideas of freedom, care, dignity, and community as much as by the political positions of religious leaders.
Family, Faith, and Institutions
Rowe presented research from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) linking upward mobility to a set of core institutions: stable, two-parent families, active participation in religious and civic organizations, and access to quality K-12 education. He cited AEI’s “Success Sequence” research, which finds that young people who complete high school, hold a full-time job, and marry before having children have a 98 percent chance of avoiding poverty.
Rowe argued that policy debates often focus heavily on structural barriers while paying insufficient attention to the institutions and behaviors that can help individuals build economic security. The challenge, in his view, is to understand how public policy and civil society can reinforce the institutions that allow individuals to exercise greater agency over their lives.
Gender and the “Women’s Vote”
Thome challenged the idea that women constitute a single political bloc. Brazil’s more than 115 million female voters are divided by religion, ideology, race, class, and geography, she noted, and these differences can be more powerful predictors of political behavior than gender alone.
At the same time, she pointed to areas in which differences between conservative and progressive women have narrowed. Equal pay and professional opportunity, for example, enjoy support across ideological lines even as significant divisions remain on issues such as abortion.
Gender-based violence represents another potential area of convergence. Against the backdrop of Brazil’s high rates of femicide and violence against women, Thome noted that conservative and feminist political actors have increasingly found common ground around efforts to strengthen protection for women.
Evangelista added that religious communities can serve as intermediaries between politics and everyday life, particularly for women. With women heading a majority of Brazilian households, she argued, political parties across the ideological spectrum have strong practical incentives to understand their economic and social priorities rather than treating the “women’s vote” as a single constituency.
Looking Ahead
The discussion concluded by considering which social changes may matter most over the next five years. Thome called for greater attention to the experiences and priorities of women outside Brazil’s political and economic elites. Evangelista highlighted younger generations and women who are engaging with public life through channels that do not necessarily run through traditional political parties or religious institutions.
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