Guillermina Seri, Union College - Democracy, Markets, Rights, and Emergency Rule

On Union College Week: Why are democracies suspending the rights of their people?

Guillermina Seri, professor of political science, explores this.

Faculty Bio:

Guillermina Seri is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Union College, NY, where she teaches courses in political theory and Latin American Politics. Seri is the author of the books Seguridad: Crime, Police Power, and Democracy in Argentina (Continuum, 2012) and Neoliberalism and Unlawful Governance. The Crisis of Democratic Rights (University of Michigan Press, 2026), and co-editor of the volume Police Abuse in Contemporary Democracies (Palgrave, 2018).

Transcript:

We often assume democracies are safe havens for human rights, but my research tracks a troubling trend: Across a number of democracies, state abuses and police violence are starting to mirror the abuses linked to emergency measures that suspend rights in authoritarian regimes.
Drawing on media and archival research, I’ve found that while emergency powers used to be the tool of dictators in the 1970s, by the mid-2000s, democratic governments were actually using them more often than nondemocracies. These records challenge established beliefs in political science that democracies “almost never” suspend rights.
Why is this happening? One trend associated with the rise of emergency regimes is the subordination of politics to protecting markets. We’ve entered an era where protecting the market has become the state's highest priority—its Reason of State—often bypassing legal safeguards. This global experiment began under the military dictatorship of 1970s Chile, then extended through and from the Global North. Today, it thrives in the “chainsaw” economics of Javier Milei's Argentina by subjecting everyone and everything to a market rationale, even when it may undermine rights protections.
However, my research also highlights the democratic extraordinary moments when citizens reclaim voice and rights. These are the moments that open possibilities to strengthen democracy and take care of both people and the planet.

Read More:

[University of Michigan Press] - Neoliberalism and Unlawful Governance