This symposium critically analyzes the transformation of state structures in Latin America, characterized by a gradual and sustained minimization of their regulatory, redistributive and welfare functions. This process of institutional reductionism is not presented as an isolated or purely domestic phenomenon, but as the result of the adoption and deepening of global neoliberal agendas. These agendas operate in close relation to the foreign policy, economic security strategies and contemporary geopolitical interests of the United States, frequently articulated through international financial bodies and multilateral free trade agreements. Within this framework, the symposium proposes the category of “autoimmune democracies” to describe a political phenomenon in which Latin American democracies elect governments that weaken the State from within, capture its public capacities and promote its social dismantling in the name of a supposed common interest, proclaimed through electoral processes increasingly mediated by the dominance of Big Data.<\/p>\n
From the perspective of political science and international studies, the symposium calls for debate on how the reduction of the State redefines the classic concept of national sovereignty in the region. The loss of state control over strategic sectors\u2014such as energy resources, infrastructure, health and education\u2014raises serious questions about the real capacity of local governments to respond to the democratic demands of their populations. Likewise, this dynamic keeps the countries of the region in predominantly extractive economies, limits their possibilities for autonomous industrialization, and reproduces forms of technological dependency that condition their subordinate insertion into the global market. The weakening of public institutionality not only redefines the boundaries between market and State, but also alters social pacts, deepens historical socioeconomic asymmetries and precarizes the living conditions of the majority.<\/p>\n
The event will be structured around papers addressing this problem through qualitative, quantitative or comparative methodologies. Special attention will be paid to the legal and political mechanisms used to dismantle the social functions of the State, to the analysis of global governance networks that condition local budgetary decisions, and to the study of citizen responses to these processes. Far from constituting a dynamic of passive acceptance, the minimization of the State has triggered intense waves of social mobilization and the emergence of political alternatives that contest the meaning of development, demand the recovery of the public sphere in the twenty-first century, and reveal growing polarization between progressive and anti-progressive forces.<\/p>\n
In conclusion, this symposium is proposed as a rigorous and plural academic space for examining the complexities of contemporary governance in the hemisphere. Its objective is to offer critical diagnoses that enable an understanding of the current challenges facing Latin American democracy in the face of the imperatives of a globalized and asymmetrical market, as well as the persistent forms of economic, technological and institutional dependency that limit regional sovereignty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","simposio_area":[49],"class_list":["post-10423","simposio","type-simposio","status-publish","hentry","simposio_area-ciencia-politica-y-estudios-politicos"],"yoast_head":"\n