Democratic engineering: Plan Colombia, Constitutionalisation and hegemonic presidential powers in Latin America (1970-2022)

Abstract

The expansion of presidential powers in many Latin American countries poses a serious threat to democratic cohesion in the region. Chiefly, during the second half of the Twenty century, the administrative legislation has overcome the boundaries of what is known as the Social State in Latin America. The latter has taken shape through constitutional and legislative reforms that have increased the “fire-power” of the presidential ruling. The “constitutionalisation”, as Loughlin calls it, which has taken place in Latin America at the begging of the Twenty-first century, shows up the instability of human rights of political and working-force minorities. Besides, the steady reduction of social security standards reflects the weakness of governments to take seriously economic equality as a priority. These social goals were some of the main conquests of democratic constitutionalism in Latin America in the late 1990s. Yet these constitutional changes represent the displacement of subcultures of the political scenario. Herein, Plan Colombia, as this essay will describe, becomes a neocolonial program that in the name of political homogenisation deploys warfare against basic liberties and social rights to enforce authoritarian presidentialism in the continent.

Keywords

• Constitutionalisation
• counterinsurgency
• Latin America
• Plan Colombia
• presidential powers
• subaltern cultures