Social Democracy in Latin America (1976-1992)

GARATEGARAY, MARTINA

Berlin

Conferencia; 23rd International Conference on the History of Concepts; 2022

Important works based on the decade of 1980 identified that during those years Latin America experienced a conceptual, political and ideological change related to what Norbert Lechner defined as the path from Revolution to Democracy, and others as the path from Dictatorship or Authoritarism to Democracy. In the same years investigations based on Social Democracy affirmed that this international actor intervened actively in Latin-American re-democratization processes. In this work I intend to analyze this process by exploring the role of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES), as a social democrat network, in the construction, exchange and circulation of democratic ideas in the Southern Cone (Uruguay, Argentine and Chile) during the “transition to democracy” years. I will explore the presence of certain key concepts that the FES put in circulation during those years (such as negotiation, consensus development and dialogue), assuming that the way in which concepts relate in a discursive plot can explain the characteristics of a certain political language and its importance in political and cultural practices. The survey will primarily explore FES publications such as memories of their activities (seminars, round tables, colloquiums, studies) and books written by Latin American or Germans Intellectuals. Taking into account the relations between German Social Democracy and Southern Cone intellectuals and politicians that sympathize with social democrat ideals, this work will enable, from a political and ideological dimension, a comparative transnational approach that seeks to connect Germany with Latin America and Latin American countries between themselves. The perspective adopted combines elements of intellectual history with global history; the reading of texts in context and the questions of change and continuity articulates with the interrelation of scales that puts in dialogue the national cases with regional and global affairs.