The new protective state and the legitimacy of exception: a global approach

Abstract

The socio-sanitary crisis generated by the accelerated proliferation of Covid-19 is producing a recentralization of the state in world society. The same movement is recreating two novel state forms: the protective state and the aggressor state. The expansion of the protective function, in turn, is co-producing a new political legitimacy of exception in record time. The latter tends to alter to some degree the legitimization dynamics of the state orders that have been advancing progressively in the vast majority of western societies since the 1980s. Based on the use of secondary sources, the present work sets out to advance in the sociological analysis of this general process of state transformation and the political legitimacy at the present juncture, both in Latin America and in the world society as a whole. The article is oriented to the identification of the central lines of future progression of the social processes involved.