Circuits of Appeal: Oppositional Amplification in Far-Right Performance

This article develops a relational account of appeal within political representation theory. Appeal is defined as the relational generation of affective investment in a political figure, movement or performance, encompassing attachment through attraction and rejection. The argument extends constructivist accounts of constituency formation by identifying a lateral dimension: responses circulate among publics, allowing those who refuse a representative claim to help shape the constituency it gathers. Oppositional amplification specifies one such process. Through antagonistic certification, hostility becomes evidence of a figure's credentials among another public and can strengthen its investment. Far-right performances offer a revealing setting because transgression and the construction of enemies give condemnation a predictable role. Bolsonaro, Trump and Milei serve as theoretical illustrations of this shared mechanism across different affective registers. The article specifies its limits and empirical traces, opening a comparative agenda in the study of political appeal beyond the far right while examining how rejection can participate in the relations it contests.