The “progressive dream” of 21st century socialism in Latin America

Abstract

Boaventura de Sousa Santos is one of the Portuguese sociologists who participated in the World Social Forum held from January 25 to 30, 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil. During a visit to Paris, we discussed the transformations of the crisis of political participation that Latin America is suffering, as a result of the ideological reconfiguration of the "right" in the region: a plural dispute for participatory and inclusive democracy. Likewise, we analyze the challenges of Latin America as a strategic socio-geographic space in the face of the ideological reaffirmation of the neoliberal economy.

The wave of global demonstrations in the last ten years has reconfigured the role of the state by forcing it to go beyond the institutionalization of regimes of political representation. But, if we take into account the Latin American context, political violence threatens the operation of the proper use of Human Rights, since it hinders that right to participate.

After a permanent decade of social mobilizations that gave rise to thinking about the "progressive dream" of socialism in the 21st century, the global economic crisis resituates geopolitical thinking about the problematic relationship of the old conservative oligarchy and the fight for hegemony cultural.