The Future at Stake. The Global Left in the 21st Century
General purpose
At a time of intense political, social, and epistemological transformations on a global scale, the project * The Future in Dispute: The Left in a Global Context for the 21st Century* proposes itself as a collaborative platform for thinking about, narrating, and articulating the multiple expressions of the contemporary left from a situated, critical, and transnational perspective. Through an open call for essays by individual authors or collectives, we seek to generate a pluralistic and accessible collection that brings together diverse voices—academic, activist, youth, and local, as well as those of public policymakers—and which, as a space for critical reflection, contributes to democratizing knowledge about the new left in its multiple forms: as thought, as practice, as an alternative project, and as a horizon.
This call for proposals is part of a broader effort to strengthen the links between research and political action, promoting inclusive, multilingual, and open publishing formats, and fostering dialogue between actors from the Global South and the Global North. This project is designed to be clear, strategic, and aligned with the principles of participation, linguistic pluralism, and the democratization of knowledge: it seeks to highlight, challenge, and strengthen contemporary expressions of the new left.
The series explores the evolution of contemporary critical thought, from the traditions of classical Marxism and new Marxisms to the innovations introduced by ecosocialism, grassroots feminism, and decolonial perspectives. It will examine debates surrounding political subjects and forms of organization, highlighting the tensions between the experiences of political parties, social movements, and the horizontal and assembly-based practices emerging in various regions to create more just and equitable societies centered on people and nature.
Likewise, analyses of experiences and assessments of the left in Latin America and the Caribbean will be considered, taking into account both progressive governments and the social movements that accompanied or challenged them, as well as the processes developed in the United States and Europe, where new critical agendas – such as feminism, anti-racist struggles and migrant collectives, radical environmentalism and the challenge of war – are reshaping the political scene.
From a broader perspective, this call for papers seeks to offer a comparative overview of critical thought and leftist movements on a global scale, identifying continuities, tensions, and challenges for the 21st century. We want to talk about the future.
This proposal seeks to be built within the framework of an inter-institutional alliance between CLACSO, Transform! Europe and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (Mexico) that not only maps the ideas of the emerging left, but also enhances its transformative capacities at a time of democratic urgency and geopolitical reconfiguration.
Guiding principles of the call for proposals
- Active participation and co-creation
- Democratization of knowledge
- Linguistic and regional plurality
- Critical, situated and transformative approach
- Recovery of excluded and subaltern knowledge
- Accessibility and diverse formats that allow reaching new audiences
- Global and transnational vocation
Deadline for submitting essays: September 21
Date of publication of results: November 2026
New closing date: September 21, 2026
- Ideological and organizational reconfiguration
- Mutations of critical thinking: from Marxism to ecosocialism, popular feminism, decoloniality and new perspectives on development in the 21st century.
- Encounters and disagreements between parties, social movements and horizontal forms of organization and new ways of thinking about the world
- The role of the left in contexts of polarization and democratic crisis. The role of new political actors.
- Left-wing projects as an alternative to the far right. Disputes over meaning. Disputes over the future.
- Latin American Lefts: Between the State and the Territory
- Genealogies and mutations of the Latin American left.
- An assessment of the progressive cycle and its new expressions in Our America
- Articulation with indigenous, anti-racist, feminist, migrant and youth movements, workers and political participation.
- Challenges to extractivism, financialization and authoritarianism: an ecological way out.
- Leftists in dialogue with subaltern communities, territories and knowledge.
- European Left: Between Institutionalization and Dissent
- Contemporary experiences in the disputes of our time: Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, among others.
- Dilemmas between governance and radicalism: co-optation or transformation? The role of the left in the face of the rise of the far right and war.
- A subaltern Europe or a space for building rights and multilateralism.
- Socialism today in the Old Continent.
- United States: emerging left-wing movements and internal disputes
- Analysis of an empire in crisis. The decline of the hegemon.
- Struggles for racial, climate, labor, gender, fiscal and migrant justice in far-right and advanced neoliberal contexts.
- Grassroots strategies against two-party hegemony. The new American socialism.
- China and Asia as the new global focus
- The new paradigms of modernity and development.
- Social and attitudinal changes: the world from the perspective of women and young people.
- A new world order as a new era.
- The end of extreme poverty: the cases of China and Kerala (India).
- Possible futures. Building a multipolar and cooperative world
- Development and modernity in the 21st century.
- The ecological civilization: experiences, practices and initiatives.
- Technology at the service of people. Artificial intelligence as a planning and development tool.
- Feminisms: the leading perspective of the 21st century. Bodies, politics and power structures.
- Thinking about the future, building horizons of expectations.
- Equality as a structural axis in building futures.
- The dispute over knowledge.
- Thematic relevance and originality
- Scope and dissemination of the proposed topics
- Clarity of argumentation and narrative
- Situated and critical approach
- Commitment to the collective construction of knowledge
- Up to 3/3 of essays will be selected from authors from priority countries: Central America, Mexico and the Insular Caribbean.
- The proposals that pass to the next stage will be evaluated by an International Committee that will assess the quality and relevance of the trials.
- Situations not covered by this call for proposals will be resolved by CLACSO.
- The ruling will be final.
transform! Europe is partially financed through a subsidy from the European Parliament.
