Prague Constitutional Seminar Series: Sebastián Salazar Pizarro

The Department of Constitutional Law invites you to the next seminar in the Prague Constitutional Seminar Series.

The seminar will feature Sebastián Salazar Pizarro from the Alberto Hurtado University (Chile). His talk will be entitled Constitutional States of Exception, Militarisation and Militarism in Latin America: The Experience of Chilean Post-Constitutionalism.

The seminar will take place on 24 June, from 16:30 in Room 38.

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The event will be held in English.

Everyone is warmly welcome!

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Bio

Sebastián Salazar Pizarro is a scholar in public and constitutional law. He studied at Alberto Hurtado University and Carlos III University of Madrid, and has completed specialised courses in International Humanitarian Law at the International Institute of Humanitarian Law.

He serves as Academic Coordinator of the Constitutional Studies Program and LLM in Public Law at Alberto Hurtado University, and teaches at the School of Social Sciences at O’Higgins University. He previously worked as a legal advisor at the Ministry of the Interior and Public Security and at the Ministry of National Defense, where he later served as Chief of Legislative Legal Advisors.

Abstract

 This presentation investigates the militarisation, militarism and the use of constitutional states of exception (CSE) by civilian and/or military politicians in the recent Chilean political landscape. Several pivotal moments underpin this analysis, including the militaristic responses during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and the process of conservative or authoritarian political restoration across various countries in the region. These events address issues such as national security, immigration, geopolitics, and economic growth amid stagnation, all of which are shaped by the expansion of radical disciplinary impulses within state capitalism. In Chile, such developments are exemplified by government decisions to deploy the army for immigration control in the northern regions (the Atacama Desert)—presumably to safeguard borders as 'critical infrastructure'—and in the southern regions (Arauco and La Araucanía) to preserve public order. The latter has involved five consecutive years of uninterrupted states of exception, renewed by the National Congress. This analysis assesses the influence of the ongoing deconstitutionalisation process on the Chilean institutional framework and civil society. Based on this assessment, the presentation considers the implications of these developments for neoliberal constitutionalism and liberal democracy. Additionally, it examines the evolution of authoritarian mechanisms and their impact on contemporary political, economic, and social processes.