The objective of this article is to evaluate how the most important political families in the nine states of the Brazilian Legal Amazon responded to two aspects of the 2022 elections: the advance of ‘bolsonarismo’ as a political force in the Amazon, and the environmental agenda. Based on the concept of political dynasties, the main family groupings (one per state) were selected. Our research question is: did the support of candidates backed by these families for Lula or Bolsonaro imply the reproduction of their respective environmental agendas? Two of the selected families have a well-defined ideological trajectory, while seven are marked by great ideological flexibility and are considered ‘swing families’. However, the majority of the families have agendas related to environmental degradation, and their trajectory converged towards candidates linked to anti-environmentalism. One family deviates from the analytical expectation, following a dynamic of economic interests and political calculation specific to the current situation. Evaluating the government programs of the state-level candidates launched or supported by these dynasties, we find that, in a national context marked by a well-defined ideological and programmatic dispute (in which the environmental agenda occupied a strategic place), support for Lula or Bolsonaro also led, in all cases, to the broad reproduction of their environmental agendas.
Political dynasties; Brazilian Legal Amazon; ‘bolsonarismo’; environmental policy