The world is changing at a speed never experienced before and in that vertiginous turn, the world of politics, economy, culture, society are bewildered. The reactionary International crosses the world and causes creaks in its claim to change the rules of the game. The political scientist Giancarlo Summa studies and analyzes this present and about his conclusions will be expressed on the night of ideas.
Summa integrates the Council of Institute of Advanced Latin America Studies (IHEAL) of the University of Paris III. Is one of the founders of the Latin American Institute of Multilateralism And one of the founders of the Network Multilateralism and radical right in Latin America in Rio de Janeiro (Mudral). He is a specialist in Political Communication and International Relations, he was director of UN Communication in Brazil, Mexico and Western Africa. In the second semester of 2024, the political scientist, who prepares a thesis in the Cespra of the School of High Studies in Social Sciences of Paris, co -organized with Monica Herz the book Multilateralism in the spotlight: the radical right in Brazil and Latin America.
It will be presented at the international meeting that carries as a motto: “The power to act.” There will be Argentine and European protagonists of social sciences, political sciences and arts. There will be activities at the Teatro Colón, Mar del Plata, Córdoba, Mendoza, Rosario, Santa Fe, Tandil and Tucumán. Organized by: Institut Français d’Artine – Embassy of France, the Network of French alliances of Argentina, Medifé Foundation, the network of the Franco -Argentine centers and local governments. Of the world reactionary wave, he spoke with ñ per zoom.
– How do you find America and Europe with Trump’s return to the White House?
– There is an international reactionary wave that grows in the world, it is articulated and has joint visions. In North America, Central America and South America the situation is very peculiar. With Donald Trump in the White House;, Milei in Argentina, Bukele in El Salvador, we have some of the most emblematic governments of supreme right in the world. They are in the company of Orbán in Hungary, Giorgia Meloni in Italy, authoritarian leaders such as Erdogan in Türkiye, for example, or Netanyahu in Israel. In the European Union there are nine countries where extreme right -wing leaders govern or participate in the government coalition.
– What do you think is most worrying?
– There is a very worrying issue: democratic erosion. I say it in the sense that several of the Latin American governments, once they are elected, use the Executive Power to weaken the powers, judicial and legislative. They govern by decree, with direct communication with the population, erode to democratic institutions, that is, the rules of the counterpoints. That happens a little worldwide, but in Latin America it is especially strong. Now it passes after a long progressive cycle to a great force of the extreme right, of conservative thought and in an international climate that deteriorates more and more. In Brazil the extreme right is very strong in the surveys, they are looking for who will be their candidate to face Lula next next year. In November there are elections in Chile and the surveys say that Johannes Kaiser is growing. Ultra -right is also growing in Ecuador, for example.
– What news stands out in that regard?
–Milei and Trump represent a great novelty. They as practically no government work with the idea of destruction of the state. In the 70s there was a Harvard political philosopher named Robert Nozick that the bestseller wrote Anarchy, State and Utopia that said more or less those things. But it was a political philosopher who manifested his vision, it was not a political practice. Now the chainsaw becomes a symbol of the relationship of politics with the State. It is something new because it makes us go back to the seventeenth century, the beginning of the 18th century when John Locke said that the only right that the State must guarantee is that of property. Then there were three centuries of privatization progress, of putting the reason for the market in the center of politics, but they never imagined that they were going to be able to do what Trump is doing now: the systematic destruction of everything that makes a state, health, education, infrastructure, transportation, everything.
– What international idea do these governments and parties share?
–Trump and others work to erode and destroy the international governance system, multilateralism. That the United Nations has been created eighty years ago, it is disturbing and worrying for them because since the end of the 19th century the countries of our region tried to find their place in the world through diplomacy and multilateralism. There were more than 20 Latin American countries, including Argentina, obviously, who were members of the Nations League after World War I. Latin America and the Caribbean represented 40% of the 51 countries that founded the United Nations in 1945. For 80 years our countries did not advance much or almost anything in regional integration, but had international insertion in the multilateral field. And now there is an effort to destroy these institutions thanks to those that we find our place in the world.
– And what would have organizations such as the IMF or the World Bank?
– There is a very evident contradiction in this when President Milei goes to the IMF to ask for money. The IMF and the World Bank are part of the international system that was created between 1944 and 1945. It is a set that works, more or less harmonically, all pieces are in its place. That is, if the effort that they are driving to destroy multilateralism advances, there is something very peculiar of that situation. It is an effort of destruction that will not have winners in our region.
– There is a position of unilateralism that grows …
–All governments, including military dictatorships, the extreme right, when they arrived at the government maintained the idea of multilateralism, of relationship with other countries to find solutions, agreements, balances because it is the only way to solve complex problems that no country can face only for stronger, bigger, more powerful than it is. Those who hug Trump are making a very risky calculation thinking that Trump will protect them. Apparently to date does not make anyone favors. It is a strategically very sensitive issue for the elections that countries can make.
– Why do you want to return to golden times that no one remembers?
–It’s Make America Great Again Trump, which is the same when Milei says that in the nineteenth century he was the richest country in the world. A mythical past, because in reality it was never exactly like that. But that is the same in all countries, there is always a mythical past from when everything was fine until the feminist came, the left -handed ones … there is an idea of a reconstruction of an idealized past that does not exist in the earth, of the motherland, of when everything was fine, when there were social hierarchies, very clear racial, it was known who was at the top, who was down.
–A idea shared in different scenarios.
– In that sense there is a total convergence of the reactionary international in its obsessions in common. Hypernationalism, the identification of spying goats, the obsession against wokism, against the bathrooms where eventually transsexual men or women can access. Obsessions that do not have great connection with reality, with the lives of people, but that are fundamental in discourse, in the elaboration of a narrative against inclusive language, reproductive, sexual rights, abortion management, women’s rights. Something that is clearly seen in the meetings made by the Conservative Political Conference (CPAC). Meetings that are held in Buenos Aires, Brazil, Mexico, United States, Hungary, Japan, etc. What Vox Spaniards call the Latinosphere.
Giancarlo Summa agenda on the night of ideas
“Inform, a combat sport.” When: May 16, at 22. Where: in the Golden Hall of the Teatro Colón.
Turn the North-South Axis. “When: May 17, at 18.30. Where: in the Golden Hall.
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