Militarized Democracies: The Neoliberal Mexican State and the Chiapas Uprising
| Autor: | Heidi Moksnes |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2004 |
| Předmět: |
Cultural Studies
Social contract Sociology and Political Science Human rights General Arts and Humanities media_common.quotation_subject Opposition (politics) International community Principle of legality Liberal democracy Democracy Politics Anthropology Political economy Political science Development economics media_common |
| Zdroj: | Social Analysis. 48 |
| ISSN: | 1558-5727 0155-977X |
| DOI: | 10.3167/015597704782352825 |
| Popis: | The neoliberal state, this article argues, displays structural contradictions between the need to create economic stability and the demand to display democratic structures where the human rights of the citizens are respected. As the discourse of human rights is increasingly used also by marginalized groups, the apparent convergence in human rights objectives may be a dangerous illusion. The last few decades, economic crises and the expansion of neoliberal mar ket economy have transformed Latin American states from reasonably sover eign, authoritarian entities to ones highly dependent on international economic institutions and markets. Governments have become accountable not only, or perhaps even primarily, to their citizens, but to "economic global actors" that impose significant restrictions on their governance (Sassen 2003). The new role of the state, as argued by Turner (2003), is to facilitate the workings of these actors, eliminating market impediments and opening the public sector for privatization. This has often led to worsened economic conditions for the poor, thus breaking with former implicit "social contracts" between centralized, cor poratist states and the national populations, which promised a certain extent of material security and well-being (Eckstein and Wickham-Crowley 2003: 12 13). The Zapatista uprising is perhaps the most famous example of popular protest against the new policies, and has been followed by more massive mobi lizations in countries such as Ecuador and Bolivia. However, for states, such protests imply a threat to economic predictability and have frequently been countered by state repression. Thus, in many countries in Latin America, the last decades have involved "a continuation or even increase in the use of force by the police and the military" (Pereira and Davis 2000: 5). However, while states need to control political opposition, they should avoid methods that upset the international community. By the protagonists of neolib eral economy, market "economy is regarded as codependent on democracy, legality and respect for human rights (Mendez 2002; Schild 1998). Thus, states have to create and maintain a reputation of liberal democracy and protection of human rights. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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