This proposal from the Working Group is based on the enriching experience of previous groups—which focused on the question of the State—comprised of many of the members of this new renewal project. This experience allowed us to delve into theoretical frameworks and, above all, the particularities, commonalities, and transformations of statehood in Latin America and the Caribbean, both in terms of its configuration and historical development and in the context of the unstable continental situation of recent years. Between 2010 and 2022, our group advanced a detailed analysis of the internal morphology of Latin American states, considering their changes and continuities in relation to the evolving power dynamics, as well as regional constraints and those imposed by the global capitalist system. From diverse perspectives and interpretations, we were able to account for the complex reality of these states, both in their most general aspects and in relation to specific national and/or plurinational issues. We characterize the period that began at the dawn of the new century in the region, where the state's role acquired renewed centrality, as the "Cycle of Challenge to Neoliberalism in Latin America" ​​(CINAL). We consider that this cycle, in turn, has stages and that its continuity is in dispute.

In the 21st century, our continent continues to be an emblematic territory of significant struggles and disputes surrounding the State. This arena of political experimentation has included governmental initiatives that, with varying degrees of radicalism and a desire for rupture, sought to distance themselves from classical neoliberal ideology. These initiatives must be understood within the context of the emergence and strengthening of a constellation of popular organizations and social movements that, with nuances, contrasts, fluctuations, and different timeframes, propelled and embraced this challenge. However, since 2015, a sense of exhaustion and reversal of these initial processes has become apparent, in a scenario marked by the effects of the 2008 global economic crisis, the drop in commodity prices, the ebb of certain emblematic grassroots struggles, and a decline in progressive governments as a whole, resulting from endogenous weaknesses and limitations combined with the aforementioned global changes and factors. Alongside this, right-wing political options with a distinctly authoritarian and conservative bent have increased, also vying for support among the region's popular sectors, with varying degrees of success. Whether all of the above points to the definitive end or rather to a new phase of the Cycle of Challenge to Neoliberalism in Latin America (CINAL) is still an open debate (Ouviña and Thwaites Rey, 2018), and it is in our interest to continue it.

Several projects labeled "progressive" have been displaced from state leadership in recent years, either due to electoral defeat, loss of legitimacy, or as a result of neo-coup tactics, media warfare, economic sabotage, and new transnational phenomena such as lawfare, amidst a climate of increasing influence for far-right coalitions and figures. The right-wing and xenophobic wave sweeping internationally, with the emblematic figure of Donald Trump, Brexit driven by British ultraconservatives, and the neo-fascists of Hungary, France, Italy, and Northern Europe, reflects an increasingly critical context for popular forces and projects. In the region, alongside the rise of figures like Bolsonaro, Macri, and Lasso, who, after their presidential victories, seemed to have left behind the state-led progressive movement, anti-neoliberal struggles were reactivated in opposition, with glimpses of anti-capitalist, anti-patriarchal, and anti-colonial resistance. During 2019 and 2020, and even into 2021, in countries like Peru, Colombia, Haiti, Chile, and Ecuador, social uprisings, street rebellions, mass strikes, and popular revolts reached a peak of confrontation, placing the state itself at the center of disputes and tensions, and pursuing an emancipatory ideal and the comprehensive democratization of societies. The new governments of Gabriel Boric in Chile and Gustavo Petro in Colombia, but also the defeat of the referendum on the repeal of the Law of Urgent Consideration (LUC) in Uruguay, as well as the recent loss for the Chilean left in the constitutional plebiscite of September 4, are part of this process and underline both the possibilities of popular action to promote pending changes from the governmental level, and the objective limits imposed by internal and regional power relations to realize them.

On a broader level, these experiences of struggle can be seen as part of a renewed hegemonic struggle against the counteroffensive of a “late” neoliberalism and conservative coalitions in Latin America and the Caribbean. The context is highly volatile and fluid from country to country, with the emergence of new right-wing and far-right figures, some even violent, as demonstrated by the recent, thwarted assassination attempt against Argentina’s Vice President, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. However, the possibility of new transitional phases in Latin American statehood cannot be ruled out, stemming from the loss of legitimacy of traditional parties and the deepening of the organic crisis, which remains unresolved. Within this framework, the creation of broad sociopolitical platforms and the emergence of actors that transcend strictly sectoral or corporate dimensions are promising for building post-neoliberal political alternatives.

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the global and regional situation. Even before the pandemic, Latin America and the Caribbean were grappling with economic stagnation, political crises affecting several governments, the rise of right-wing movements with social support, and popular uprisings against the deepening of neoliberalism and corruption, and especially against demands for the expansion of rights, expressed in feminist, Indigenous, student, grassroots, and socio-environmental struggles. With the arrival of COVID-19, the panorama became much more complex, as the global pandemic has brought to light, among other pressing issues in the region, the brutality of gender-based violence, social inequality, the violation of fundamental rights, the extreme vulnerability of the population subjected to precarious and flexible labor, the intensification of extractivism, and the significant deterioration of health and social security systems (Bautista, Durand, and Ouviña, 2021). And, above all, it laid bare both the irreplaceable centrality of states in addressing the health, economic, and social consequences of the pandemic, and the varying capacities of administrative apparatuses to manage them. It became clear that in countries where the state management structure was very weak, the pandemic's consequences for the population were far more disastrous. In other words, it exposed the contradiction of the state's presence as both a bearer of repression and discipline, and as the indispensable organizer of the infrastructure of the commons. This leads us to the need to understand in depth the contradictory and multifaceted nature of state administrative apparatuses, the role they play, their characteristics, and, consequently, to question the possible paths for their transformation (Thwaites Rey, 2004).

Over the past few decades, we have experienced periods of great upheaval and political instability, revealing the limitations and structural problems of the state and the democratic system. With diverse forms and dynamics of protest, popular movements, unions, and social organizations deployed collective action with their own agendas, but they also assumed a leading role in arenas of political dispute, either from "outside" the political sphere, achieving gains materialized in public policies, laws, and the expansion of rights, or by supporting government actions without integrating into its structures or even becoming part of the government itself.

Based on the trajectory of the preceding working groups that support this proposal, we have chosen to name this complex process the Cycle of Challenge to Neoliberalism in Latin America, CINAL (Ouviña and Thwaites Rey, 2019; Bautista, Durand, and Ouviña, 2021), to account for the open, dynamic, and continuous unfolding of a crucible of popular resistance and political disputes that challenged the projects of structural adjustment, deregulation, dispossession of common goods, and privatization of public assets, which placed the state dimension at the forefront. CINAL expresses diverse levels of power relations in each national context, but, as a whole and beyond its nuances, it represented a complex and fraught moment of challenge to neoliberalism as a hegemonic project and its form of state construction. It is in the state dimension of such a challenge that the limits of the change projects were most exposed, and that is why we propose to continue analyzing it in this new stage.

On an analytical level, we assume that the State—as an arena of conflict and the material condensation of a correlation of class forces, by definition asymmetrical and unstable—is not a neutral entity, but neither can it be considered a monolithic bloc instrumentally serving the dominant classes. Rather, it must be understood as a constitutively contradictory sphere, marked by struggles and disputes and permeated by factors of real power that determine the characteristics and functioning of institutions beyond specific governments (Thwaites Rey, 2012; Oliver, 2016; Ouviña and Thwaites Rey, 2019). Thus, democratizing aspirations, in line with popular demands, cannot ignore the necessary problematization of the limits and possibilities derived from the matrix of capitalist-patriarchal-racist domination, which determines the place of Latin America and the Caribbean in the world and its specific state configurations. That is why it is essential to understand the characteristics and mutations of the state apparatuses through which domination circulates, is disputed, and is also made invisible.

In the 21st century, the strength of the state's repressive apparatus and its persistent capacity for autonomous action, independent of governmental political power, have become evident. For most progressive projects that triumphed in democratic elections, it proved very difficult—if not impossible—to subordinate the repressive bodies, which retained room for maneuver consistent with their role as the ultimate guarantor of capital's domination. While resorting to a classic coup d'état and the direct assumption of political leadership by military commanders became unfeasible—due to the disrepute they carry from the dictatorial period of the 1970s and 80s—the brutal police forces and the intransigent armed forces—also linked to organized crime—demonstrated their unshakeable power in key situations in the region (such as the resounding cases of Honduras, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Guatemala).

At the same time, the judicial system, one of the permanent apparatuses of the State, became a central actor, acting as the leading guarantor of the survival of the class-based social order. The criminalization of protest, the imprisonment of social activists, and the persecution of political leaders through the courts—with fabricated cases and evidence, in collusion with intelligence services and the media, to destroy adversaries and remove them from the democratic process—the so-called lawfare or judicial warfare—became commonplace. The growing political prominence of the judiciary thus exposed the constitutive structure of the most anti-democratic and counter-majoritarian apparatus of the State, which is expressed not only in blatant political persecution but also in the entire framework of civil and administrative courts that reproduce class hierarchies. This is a central aspect when analyzing the functioning of the State and its possibilities for transformation.

Therefore, we consider it pertinent to address the multiple dimensions of the Latin American and Caribbean state amidst one of the deepest capitalist crises, marked by the dangerous global offensive of the right and far right and warmongering. Within this framework, we have identified, through collective dialogue, renewed priority dimensions that we propose to explore further in the coming phase:

1) The permanent state institutions that play a decisive role in our region as factors of real power, beyond specific governments. We are referring to the judicial and repressive systems (armies, police, intelligence services), which operate within the state sphere in a restricted sense, closely linked to those that are deployed in the construction of meaning at the societal level, such as the media. Therefore, we do not aim to study the media per se, but rather their relationship with the judicial and repressive apparatuses.

2) The spheres of public management and administration (at the national and local levels) that process the multiple demands and social needs. We will consider both the structures and processes that obstruct democratization, and the spaces and practices that demonstrate the possibilities for deploying a New Management of the Commons, even within the framework of currently existing institutional apparatuses. Here we will address the complex realm of public policies, to think about and propose actions to democratize and de-patriarchalize the State and give an effective place to plurinationality, in direct dialogue with the socio-political practices that characterize the (re)emergence of popular struggles.

3) The contemporary forms of public-state governance experienced in the region, to identify in them the features of preservation of the status quo or the intention of change. We aim to create a map of experiences that allows us to distinguish (theoretically and empirically) processes of right-wing, conservative, or neo-liberal political restoration from those that attempt to promote a refounding of statehood that seeks democratic shifts in power, especially at the local level.

4) The actions of social movements in relation to the State demonstrate that the relationship between institutional politics and protest politics is increasingly dynamic and interdependent, exposing the contradictions inherent in fighting against, within, and beyond the State. We propose to investigate the "socio-political" character present in the practices of social movements that confront the limits of state power to defend or expand rights won during the CINAL's heyday, while experimenting with new forms of organization and self-governance. We are interested in focusing on the "socio-political" dimension, as a specific aspect of the field of social movement studies, to emphasize its relationship with the State (Távera, 2007; Bautista, 2014; Durand, 2016; Modonesi, 2015). We will explore the public dimension at play in social actions and how it poses concrete challenges to the State and its material forms.