The Tacit Agreement: Why does the abortion issue do powerfully mobilize authoritarian backsliding?

Abstract

Why does abortion occupy such a central place in authoritarian mobilization strategies? This article argues that its centrality stems from a tacit agreement: authoritarian elites pledge to safeguard private hierarchies, above all, male authority, and, in return, receive support to concentrate state power. Religion provides much of the moral vocabulary, but it does not account for the link between opposition to abortion legalization and pro-coup dispositions, that link emerges from the pact that binds together the public and private spheres. Using data from the 2022 ESEB and quasi-experimental strategies, the analysis shows that attitudes toward abortion operate as an independent marker of pro-coup impulses, which, in turn, shaped the vote for Bolsonaro in 2022. Thus, the abortion controversy is not merely a moral dispute: it constitutes a core component of the political engineering of contemporary authoritarianism.