GIOVANNA GARCIA

Thesis:  Far-Right Fever: Examining the Electoral Rise of Brazil and Hungary's Populist Radical Right 

Thesis Director:  Dr. Amanda Driscoll, International Affairs Program

"The Bess H. Ward Honors Thesis Award has proven invaluable toward facilitating my Honors in the Major research. My thesis project focuses on investigating those institutional factors that enabled the electoral rise of the populist radical right in Brazil and Hungary. This comparative study required me to access a vast number of resources currently unavailable through the FSU library. Funding from the Bess H. Ward Honors Thesis Award allowed me to access this critical literature that provided crucial information on political supply factors, social demand factors, theory on far-right regimes and general institutional theory. Similarly, this funding enabled me to access other literature that specifically analyzes President Bolsonaro and Prime Minister Orbán’s regimes and their respective rise to power in Brazil and Hungary.

As my thesis also examines ongoing developments in each country, having regular access to reliable international news sources has proven critical in my research endeavors; this grant funding allowed me to have this subscription access as well. Overall, the Bess H. Ward Honors Thesis Award, by providing such support for my research, has enriched my Honors in the Major experience. Indeed, I have found my Honors in the Major Thesis to be one of the most fulfilling aspects of my undergraduate experience at Florida State as it has allowed me to fuse my international affairs/political science education with my special interests."

-Giovanna Garcia, 2021 Bess H. Ward Thesis Award Winner