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Talking Democratization in Buenos Aires

By March 13, 2018September 20th, 2023No Comments

International Workshop | Conferencia Internacional

RETHINKING DEMOCRATIZATION IN AFRICA AND LATIN AMERICA: VIOLENCE, STATE, CITIZENSHIP, AND MARKETIZATION | REPENSADO LA DEMOCRATIZACIÓN EN AFRICA Y AMÉRICA LATINA: VIOLENCIA, ESTADO, CIUDADANÍA Y MERCANTILIZACIÓN

Buenos Aires | UNSAM–EDIFICIO VOLTA, PISO 6, AULA 603. AVENIDA R. S. PEÑA 832, CABA.

19, 20, 22 and 23 March 2018 | 19, 20, 22 y 23 de Marzo 2018

#DemocratizationBA

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Press Release

An international lecture tour collaboration on the new crisis of democracy

This March, prominent thinkers from three continents will meet in Buenos Aires to discuss, debate and make sense of the current crisis of democracy across different states and societies.

The transitions from various authoritarian regimes to liberal representative democracy, the rule of law, and the constitutional state that began during the last quarter of the previous century in various parts of the world appears to have been formally concluded.

However, in recent years serious concerns have emerged regarding the democratic character of these transformations and the consolidations that followed in their wake. The institutional and ethico-political practices that have become dominant and widespread have themselves generated a new crisis of democracy, and though different from the current discussion on ‘post-democracy’ across the global North, it might be useful to explore some of the family resemblances between the two.

In the global South, the crisis of democratization and the questions it generates, provide an opportunity to critically examine the idea of democratization itself and to reflect on the foundations, conditions, and assumptions that have informed the global diffusion of contemporary forms of liberal-representative democracy.

The task of the conference is to rethink the ‘actually existing’ experience, theory, and concept of democratization from an interdisciplinary perspective that combines empirical and normative concerns and approaches. With participants from South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru and the US, the conference brings together scholars from a variety of academic disciplines, theoretical backgrounds and divergent ethico-political perspectives to explore and provide alternative ways of making sense of the current crisis of democracy across different states and societies.

The result of a collaboration between the Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI) in Johannesburg and the New School for Social Research at The New School, New York, this is the first of three international conferences. It will take place in Buenos Aires at the Instituto de Altos Estudios Sociales (IDAES), Universidad Nacional de San Martin, 19–23 March 2018.

The conference will feature a week of debates around topics including citizenship and marketization, the institutionalization of the state, the violence(s) of the everyday, configurations of political life, urban imaginaries, and the legality of constitutional rights.

Rethinking Democratization is funded by the Public Affairs Research Institute.