Statement from the Council of Deans of Faculties of Social Sciences and Humanities of Argentine Public Universities (CODESOC), regarding the defunding of Science and Technology programs

The government continues its attack on science in general and the social sciences in particular. In budgetary terms, it has decided to dismantle the entire science and technology system, adding to this a discourse of attack on the social sciences. Recently, the President of the Nation signed Decree 10/2025, establishing his priorities in science and technology while neglecting the social sciences. This decision by the government is at least curious, given its systematic use of classic themes within this scientific field. Let's look at just a few examples:

Since taking office, this government has raised the need to review social policies, a field in which social work has built experience, assessed achievements and difficulties in their implementation, and developed numerous proposals to address pressing social problems in our society. What other field of knowledge has contributed more in this area?

This government is attentive to the use of social media as a communication space; in other words, it's keeping abreast of developments in Social Communication, another branch of the Social Sciences. Just a few months ago, the government managed to get Congress to approve a new voting mechanism using a single ballot. Who else but political scientists, who else, would design electoral models and voting systems?
Finally, the government is proposing an economic transformation of our country that would have a significant impact on the employment structure. Is it aware that sociology has been working on this issue for over a century and has contributed to the most relevant debates?

Clearly, the government is using key developments in the social sciences to wield political power, influence public discourse, and implement policies aimed at denying, curtailing, and delegitimizing rights. This "chainsaw" approach is not a positive development policy, nor is it a proposal to improve the efficiency and productivity of public administration, nor does it foster a virtuous relationship between the public and private sectors. On the contrary, it is a policy that destroys the capacities all states need to exercise their sovereignty and develop their societies, particularly in education, healthcare, and the scientific and technological system. This "chainsaw" approach is a way of dismantling the state capacities that democracies require to confront the challenges posed by the civilizational shifts we are witnessing.

Therefore, we can affirm that what worries the government is the development of Social Sciences that assume a role of denouncing social injustices, documenting and analyzing the historical conditions of marginalization, discrimination, asymmetries and inequalities, and that can expose, with data and arguments, the adjustment model, the destruction of the State as the main regulator of collective life to the detriment of the market, with policies that favor privileged sectors to the detriment of other sectors of society, generating greater inequality and poverty.
The social sciences, in order to develop, require commitment and the practice of critical thinking, the recognition that there is no single way of thinking and, therefore, of acting, but rather multiple approaches; that there are no natural consequences; that inequality is a social construct and not the natural development of a society. Perhaps this is what is troubling about the social sciences.

The attacks against the social sciences are not accidental. This is precisely because this government intends to wage, as it has announced, a cultural battle that consists of disseminating a form of indoctrination that it paradoxically claims to combat. For this purpose, the social sciences are its primary target because they promote critical thinking, reveal the threads of different forms of domination—class, race, gender—and provide tools and arguments for the freedom of people, not of isolated individuals who exchange goods, but of people who live in communities and believe in collective construction.

We are convinced that collective action is the path to redressing the injustices we are experiencing. Only solidarity can withstand this authoritarianism; they will not steal our strength in the struggle or our resistance. This is the commitment we make as part of the social sciences.

January 21, 2025
Council of Deans of Faculties of Social Sciences and Humanities

This text expresses the position of the aforementioned Council and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.