Next year, 2023, will mark fifty years of the bloody US-supported coup d’état in Chile that overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende and installed a brutal military dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet. The Pinochet regime’s logic of ‘usurping’ and ‘economizing’ the democratic has been enacted in the decades since in many countries, including Western democracies. Subordinating political rights to economic freedom and identifying democratic legitimacy with passive consent, some of them have also responded to movements like Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion with laws and regulations virtually outlawing public protests.

This panel discussion is the public event of the international workshop convened by the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy on “Economic Freedom and Political Rights: Neoliberal Challenges to Democracy”. 

This session is hybrid and open to the public with prior registration.

Panelists:

• Rossana Castiglioni, Professor and Dean of the College of Social Sciences and History, Diego Portales University, Santiago de Chile
• Claudia Heiss, Head of Political Science of the Institute of Public Affairs, Universidad de Chile, Santiago de Chile
• Patricio Silva, Professor of modern Latin American history at Leiden University, The Netherlands
• Rafáel Sanchez, Faculty Affiliate, Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy, Geneva Graduate Institute (Chair)

As limited places are available for attendance in person, prior registration is mandatory. Seats will be allocated on a first-served basis.