The New Right in International Relations: the role of Students for Liberty (SFL) in promoting a neoliberal rationality in Brazil (2012/2022)

Abstract

The aim of this research is to map and systematize the practices of the transnational organization Students for Liberty (SFL), on the Brazilian domestic context, between 2012, the year in which the entitys first activities in the country took place, and the general elections of 2022. By analyzing the action of the SFL during the period, the goal is to understand the origins that culminated in repercussions in the political, legal-institutional and subjectivities fields, corresponding to a consolidatation of a political rationality in line with the rise of the extreme right in Brazil, with support in the creation of a set of political leaderships and movements, such as the Free Brazil Movement (MBL), the Livres movement, the Mercado Popular Institute, the Aliança pela Liberdade, among others. From a critical perspective of International Relations Theory and the analytic-genealogical method, it is proposed to describe the functioning of the organization and which technologies of power it mobilizes, as an element of a strategic reconfiguration of neoliberalism during the second decade of the 21st century.