This new proposal from the Working Group (WG) builds on the enriching experience of its predecessor groups, which focused on the "question of the State" and included a significant portion of the members of the current initiative. In previous years, we had the opportunity to conduct a collective inquiry into 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 2025, our WG advanced the development of theoretical dimensions and the detailed analysis of the internal morphology of Latin American states, paying particular attention to the changes and continuities related to the evolving power dynamics, as well as to 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 states, both in general terms 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 role acquired renewed centrality, as the "Cycle of Challenge to Neoliberalism in Latin America" ​​(CINAL).

In the 21st century, our continent has become an emblematic territory for significant struggles and disputes surrounding the state and the very meaning of democracy. 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, beginning in 2015, the exhaustion and reversal of these initial processes became apparent, in a scenario marked by the effects of the global economic crisis that began in 2008, the drop in commodity prices, the ebb of certain emblematic grassroots struggles, and a decline in the overall strength of progressive governments, 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 emerged, vying for support among the region's popular sectors with increasing success. While up until 2023 we could consider that, rather than a definitive closure, CINAL was undergoing a new phase (Ouviña and Thwaites Rey, 2019), what has unfolded since then is a global, far-right counteroffensive in full swing (Mudde, 2021; Forti, 2025). Several of the so-called progressive projects have been displaced from state leadership in recent years, whether due to electoral defeats, 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 growing influence for far-right coalitions and figures. The right-wing and xenophobic wave that swept the international stage began with Donald Trump's first term, creating a critical context for popular forces and projects. In the region, alongside the rise of right-wing figures like Bolsonaro, Macri, and Lasso, the period from 2019 to 2021 saw the reactivation of anti-neoliberal struggles, with glimpses of anti-capitalist, anti-patriarchal, and anti-colonial resistance, in countries such as Peru, Colombia, Haiti, Chile, and Ecuador. These struggles positioned the state as a prime arena for disputes and tensions (Ouviña, 2023; Durand, 2023). From these processes emerged the governments of Gabriel Boric in Chile, Gustavo Petro in Colombia, and Alberto Fernández and Cristina Fernández, though under less favorable conditions for implementing the demands of popular sectors in terms of establishing progressive public policies.

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the global and regional situation, as lockdowns and the disruption of global supply chains laid bare the brutality of gender-based violence, social inequality, the violation of fundamental rights, the extreme vulnerability of populations subjected to precarious employment, the intensification of extractivism, and the significant deterioration of health and social security systems, with fear and death leaving a trail of pain and profoundly traumatic fragility (Bautista, Durand, and Ouviña, 2021; Fraser, 2023; Torres and López Lizarazo, 2024). Most strikingly, it exposed both the irreplaceable centrality of states in addressing the health, economic, and social consequences of the pandemic, and the highly disparate capacities and weaknesses of administrative apparatuses in managing them. In other words, the contradiction of the state's presence as both a bearer of repression and discipline, and as a limited and insufficient organizer of the commons, was exposed. Restrictions on movement disproportionately affected those without stable jobs or social security, who live hand to mouth, thus creating a stark divide with those who did benefit from the protection of formal employment, primarily in the public sector. Young people, deprived of educational and recreational spaces, were also severely impacted by the lockdowns. During this hiatus, a great deal of social resentment grew, which the far right effectively exploited through social media, using it as a battering ram to undermine the historical gains of the popular movement.

The victory of the far-right Javier Milei in Argentina at the end of 2023 is the most notable example of this trend unfolding globally, which, since January 2025, has enjoyed the explicit support of the new administration of Donald Trump in the US. This experiment has had emblematic precedents in the authoritarian governments of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, who in 2019 came to power through their electoral victories (Nunes, 2024; Gibler, Barbosa, and Tovar, 2025). In general, the frontal attack on state institutions that protect social welfare, won through popular struggles, and those that ensure the very existence of democracy is a decisive characteristic of the global far-right wave (Barreda Rosales, 2025). The convergence of the rise of technological monopolies associated with Western financial capital (Morozov, 2022; Varoufakis, 2024; Da Empoli, 2025), which control the production and circulation of goods, data, and meaning, with the emergence of China as a challenging power due to its exponential growth, coupled with the depletion of fossil fuels, has ushered in a time of confrontation and belligerence against the peoples and subordinate classes of the entire planet, under the command of Trump's far right. Latin America and the Caribbean, as part of the "Western Hemisphere" that the US claims for itself, face grave dangers today under the Trump administration. The militarization of the Caribbean, the threats to Venezuela and Colombia, the interference in Brazil, and the blatant intervention in Argentina are just a few examples of the perilous times the region faces. These circumstances reinforce the need to understand in depth the contradictory and multiple nature of state apparatuses, the role they play, the characteristics they present and, from there, to question ourselves about the possible ways of their transformation (Thwaites Rey, 2004).

We assume that the State is not a neutral entity, but neither is it a monolithic bloc at the service of the dominant classes. Rather, it must be understood as a 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 Latin America and the Caribbean's place in the world, its specific state configurations, and its historical changes. Therefore, it is fundamental to understand the characteristics and mutations of the state apparatuses through which domination circulates, is contested, and is also rendered invisible, and which shape or restrict actually existing democracies.

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. Most progressive governments failed to subordinate these 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 became unfeasible—due to the disrepute it had acquired during the preceding dictatorship—the brutal police and the stubborn armed forces demonstrated their unshakeable power in key situations (as in the high-profile cases of Honduras, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Guatemala). Simultaneously, narco-criminal and paramilitary structures, with connections to transnational capital and organic links to certain state apparatuses, gained prominence, perpetrating massacres, violating rights, and even exercising de facto sovereignty over vast territories. This scenario has called into question the monopoly of violence - and its legitimacy - on the part of the State, which forces us to rethink and investigate its ambivalent role, based on the analysis of two traits that coexist and are seemingly contradictory: acting as responsible for compliance with the law and, at the same time, being an accomplice or co-participant in criminal acts (Franco Restrepo, 2009; Segato, 2016; Auyero and Sobering, 2021).

Likewise, the judicial apparatus, as guarantor of the survival of the class-based social order, played a leading role in the criminalization of protest, the imprisonment or persecution of social and political leaders through the courts, fabricating cases—in collusion with intelligence services and the media—to destroy adversaries and remove them from the democratic process, a practice known as lawfare or judicial warfare (Mendes, 2022). This exposed the constitutive structure of the most anti-democratic and counter-majoritarian state apparatus, which manifests itself 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 state functioning, its potential for transformation, and its impact on democracy itself.

Therefore, we consider it pertinent to address the multiple dimensions of the State amidst one of the deepest capitalist crises, marked by the dangerous global offensive of the right and far right, open warmongering, and a growing militarization of territories and communities (Barrios, 2023). Within this framework, we have identified priority dimensions that we intend to continue studying and exploring in greater depth in the coming phase:

1) Permanent state spheres, whose configurations play a decisive role as factors of real power, beyond specific governments. We refer to judicial systems (forms of selection and operation of the body of magistrates and judicial officers) and repressive systems (armies, police, intelligence services), which operate within the state sphere in a restricted sense, closely linked to those that unfold in the construction of meaning at the societal level, such as mass media and social networks. In turn, we will delve into the study of regimes of exception and the hybrid form of authoritarian statism, as a trend involving several countries on the continent. Far from being opposites, politics and criminality are intertwined as parts of the same structural functioning of the state, through a "legality perforated by illegality" (Poulantzas, 1979 and 2024; Jessop, 2016).

2) The state capacities necessary to deepen democratic control over the use of common goods for the benefit of the people. We are interested in understanding how public intervention can manage issues such as food sovereignty, the energy transition, reducing dependence on extractive activities, and the rational and responsible intergenerational use of existing or future energy sources. We will emphasize exploring the limitations and possibilities of national state structures in addressing these challenges.

3) The spheres of public management and administration (at the national and local levels) that process the multiple social demands and needs in the territories. This relates to the contemporary forms of the public-state experienced in the region, in order to identify within them the characteristics of preserving the status quo or the intention to change. We will consider both the structures and processes that obstruct democratization, as well as the spaces and practices that demonstrate the possibilities for deploying a New Management of the Commons or a new municipalism, whether within the framework of traditional institutional apparatuses or in spheres created with the purpose of expanding rights and guaranteeing the democratization of the public sphere. We aim to update a map of experiences that allows us to distinguish (theoretically and empirically) processes of right-wing, conservative, neo-fascist, and/or neoliberal political restoration from those that attempt to promote a refounding of the state that seeks democratic shifts in power. In this last scenario, we are interested in identifying and analyzing the political projects that aspire to confront or overcome neoliberal public-private alliances, through public-community dynamics, or associative convergences between the State and civil society organizations, in the formulation and implementation of public policies or regulations aimed at the reinvention and democratization of the state, promoting proposals for radical transformation or "concrete utopias" (Wright, 2015; Fernández Ortiz de Zarate, 2016).

4) The actions of social movements in relation to the State, insofar as they demonstrate that the relationship between institutional politics and protest politics is increasingly dynamic and interdependent, expose 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 heyday of CINAL and violated or threatened by right-wing forces, 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; Tatagiba and Chave Teixeira, 2021). We will investigate the public dimension that comes into play in social actions and poses concrete challenges to the State and its material forms.