La gauche uruguayenne et la nécessaire imagination radicale

Abstract

Democratic societies articulate their dynamics of reproduction and transformation through a shared background of values and beliefs that constitute the way in which societies understand themselves. These self-understandings are the scenario of historical reconfigurations that guide how societies transform their way of regulating what is owed to their citizens as free and equal. In Uruguay the arrival of the left wing to the government can be seen as a result of the reconfiguration of such background of shared values and beliefs, which led to a more egalitarian interpretation of what the institutional arrangements guaranteeing equal citizenship status should be. Although these expectations were met in the two governments of the Frente Amplio, once most basic social minima have been relatively successfully secured, an important feeling of dissatisfaction is perceptible on the part of citizens who have historically identified themselves with the values and beliefs that have cemented the self-understanding of the Uruguayan left wing. An extended account is that once in power, the government management inhibited the capability of representing scenarios of substantive changes. This seems to be the problem that the Uruguayan left wing shares with other leftist governments in the region, which makes it necessary to restore the ability to represent and imagine substantive changes in society, in absence of which the left will continue losing its historical commitments and will just be assimilated to a prosperous centre-left government. To that aim it is necessary for public discussion to be energized by the question “What are the structural transformations that should take place in order to revitalize the self-understanding built in the last fifty years?”

Keywords

• citizenship
• politics
• dignity