As part of the Dialogues with Latin America series, tomorrow at 5 p.m. Casa América presents the conversation Democracy and reconstruction of the social contract in Ibero-America. Free admission until full capacity is reached. It can also be followed live on our YouTube and Twitter channels.
Juan Fernández Trigo, Secretary of State for Ibero-America and the Caribbean and Spanish in the World; Kevin Casas-Zamora, Secretary General, IDEA-International, and Esther del Campo, Professor of Political Science and Dean of the Faculty of Political Science and Sociology, Complutense University of Madrid, will take part in the event. Enrique Ojeda, Director General of Casa de América, will present and moderate.
The political scenario that Latin America is currently experiencing, and the renewed emphasis on democracy and human rights in Spanish foreign policy and cooperation, make it advisable to dedicate a monographic session of the “Dialogues with Latin America” series to the analysis of democratic processes and the reconstruction of the social contract in the region. The deterioration of democratic systems in Latin America, and in particular the serious crisis of representation and the growing citizen disaffection that can be observed in many countries, has one of its main manifestations in the weakening of political parties and democratic forces.
Added to this are worrying trends towards greater polarisation, the erosion of the public sphere for democratic deliberation, and the emergence and rise in the region of political forces that openly question the rule of law, the balance of powers, institutions, rights and freedoms, and pluralism that characterise democratic systems.
The debate is about how democracy functions in each country, without this casting doubt on the political regime as a whole. At the same time, and as a trend that has been noticeable for years, citizens in Latin American countries are expressing a rejection of “captured democracies”. In other words, the actions of minority political and economic elites who defend their interests from the government to the detriment of the social majorities in the region.
This Dialogue will present the Report on The State of Democracy in the Americas 2021, prepared by International IDEA, which shows how, despite the resilience shown in the face of the pandemic, the quality of democracy continues to erode in the region, marked especially by the weakening of the rule of law, as well as by the growing inability of many of the region’s democracies to articulate political and social agreements that allow them to face the aforementioned challenges.
