ANALYSIS OF SCENARIOS OF POLARIZATION, EXTREMISM, POPULISM, AUTHORITARIANISM AND THE CRISIS OF DEMOCRACY FROM SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
The diverse expressions of authoritarianism, so-called illiberal democracies, and the emergence worldwide and in Latin America of far-right and extreme-right movements and political parties, which have intensified dynamics of polarization, soft fanaticism and extremism in various contexts, lead us to propose this symposium, which seeks to develop a systemic, complex, inter- and transdisciplinary perspective capable of relating various categories drawn from different disciplinary and theoretical horizons.
The idea is to address diverse manifestations and forms of political subjectivity in national and international contexts that allow us to trace the emergence of new forms of authoritarianism, neofascism, and certain radical left- and right-wing extremisms which have, at the very least, shaped forms of populism and made use of social polarization, hate speech, the media manipulation of emotions, fanaticism, and other psychosocial phenomena that constitute themes and problems worthy of reflection.
It can be said that, at the global level, a phenomenon is emerging that takes on homogeneous characteristics, with a vocation for hegemony, in which new forms of the political have brought liberal democracy into crisis. This has given way to autocratic and authoritarian processes that can be assimilated to the concept of illiberal democracy, tinged with either left- or right-wing hues, as in the cases of Maduro in Venezuela, Ortega in Nicaragua, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Bukele in El Salvador, Orbán in Hungary, Putin in Russia, Trump in the United States, and Milei in Argentina.
The French intellectual Pierre Rosanvallon (2020) notes that studies on populism have focused on observing that its emergence stems from the fact that the losers of globalization express a strong sense of indignation and fury toward a system that condemns them to decline, which in many cases leads them to identify with populist discourses, in which sectors of both the extreme right and the most radical left often converge.
Authors such as Waisbord (2020) have noted that polarization is a contemporary challenge to democracy, as processes of political radicalization have been observed to increase, raising the level of threat to tolerance and the diversity of opinions in democratic debate. The problem arises when the category of ‘enemy’ emerges in political debate and dispute; the adversary thus ceases to be someone of value and becomes someone to whom hostility is attributed, leading to a type of antagonistic relationship in which they are delegitimized, disqualified, and can even be eliminated. All of this manifests in hate speech, extremism and sectarianism that prevent dialogue or democratic debate, and that empower authoritarian projects that profoundly affect democracy and coexistence.
Therefore, research or theoretical reflection papers addressing these issues will be welcomed at this symposium as part of a committed reflection from the social sciences aimed at shedding light on the crisis of contemporary democracy.
