Postwar authoritarianism. Nayib Bukele, covid-19, and the crisis of the salvadoran state
This article argues that the COVID-19 pandemic in El Salvador accelerated the notorious authoritarian turn of President Bukele, manifest in the executive power’s militarized and anti-democratic response and the prolonged constitutional crisis it provoked. Drawing on the critique of political economy...
| Autor: | |
|---|---|
| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2026 |
| País: | México |
| Institución: | UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL AUTÓNOMA DE MÉXICO |
| Repositorio: | De raíz diversa. Revista Especializada en Estudios Latinoamericanos |
| Idioma: | español |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ojs.pkp.sfu.ca:article/94791 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://revistas.unam.mx/index.php/deraizdiversa/article/view/94791 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | El Salvador; pandemic; authoritarianism; Nayib Bukele El Salvador; pandemia; autoritarismo; Nayib Bukele |
| Sumario: | This article argues that the COVID-19 pandemic in El Salvador accelerated the notorious authoritarian turn of President Bukele, manifest in the executive power’s militarized and anti-democratic response and the prolonged constitutional crisis it provoked. Drawing on the critique of political economy and critical Latin American thought, my analysis of the context from which Bukele emerged and the events of March 2020 – December 2021 allows me to contend that the crisis provided a scenario for an intensification of the social conflicts and contradictions in the country, which had already endured more than a decade of crisis in its postwar political economy, thus generating the conditions for the president’s 2024 unconstitutional re-election and the perpetual State of Exception installed in the country since March of 2022. |
|---|