La reelección presidencial inconstitucional como modo de autocratización: Los casos de Nicaragua y El Salvador

Within an ongoing global debate on autocratization, the present book aims to study a region that still seems to be insufficiently analyzed in the global discourse: Central America. Nine thematic chapters on El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua explore the scope, paths and mechanisms of autocratization, while also examining resistance and opposition, combining legal-political analysis. The chapters hence make contributions with regards to 1. institutions, power structures and mechanisms of autocratization; 2. actors and mechanisms of resistance; and 3. international law, introducing the applicable standards to situations of autocratization.

Organiser: University of Science and Technology (ULACIT) Alina Maria Ripplinger (Speaker)

This event provided ULACIT students with concepts and reflections on how the authoritarian drift in some Central American countries has undermined essential values of justice, political participation and equality, negatively affecting the fulfillment of the SDGs.

IUROPA Workshop on Law and Courts, University of Oslo, Oslo Alina Maria Ripplinger (Speaker)

The Workshop offered a plattform to learn and exchange regarding working with data on law and courts. Sessions on methods, concepts, and measurement were delivered and questions discussed around how the law can be used to counter autocratisation as well as how to understand the impact of resistance.

Social Science Approaches to Law and Courts, UCL, London Alina Maria Ripplinger (Speaker)

The workshop invited advanced doctoral students and ECRs from the field of social-legal studies; it was held at the Department of Political Science at University College London.

This presentation of the edited volume on Central America introduces three dimensions that can guide the analysis of autocratisation: 1) Institutions, power structures and mechanisms of autocratisation, 2) Actors and mechanisms of resistance, 3) International law.

Nicaragua: elecciones en el único país del mundo sin periódicos impresos
¿Qué papel cumplen las elecciones presidenciales en un país donde se reprime la protesta, se impide el ejercicio de las libertades y se encarcela a la oposición? Alina Ripplinger identifica tres objetivos de la dictadura, a partir de los que señala un escenario para las acciones u omisiones de la reacción dentro y fuera del país.

Daniel Ortega is the president of Nicaragua. He has been in power for more than 15 uninterrupted years. How much is left of initial ideas? Can it be said that Ortega's current government is leftist? How has it gone from the Sandinista revolution to a police state in Nicaragua? 

Nicaragua released 222 imprisoned government opponents and deported them to the United States. This maneuver advances a path of violations of elementary constitutional and international norms, and of a criminalization of political, social and cultural leaders.

Alina Ripplinger has been awarded the Best Conference Paper Award for an Early-Career Researcher. Her paper, entitled “Politics of Legal Resistance: The strategic use of law to counter autocratization,” presented at the ECPR General Conference, received this honor by the SG Law & Courts.

Within an ongoing global debate on autocratization, the present book aims to study a region that still seems to be insufficiently analyzed in the global discourse: Central America. Nine thematic chapters on El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua explore the scope, paths and mechanisms of autocratization, while also examining resistance and opposition, combining legal-political analysis. The chapters hence make contributions with regards to 1. institutions, power structures and mechanisms of autocratization; 2. actors and mechanisms of resistance; and 3. international law, introducing the applicable standards to situations of autocratization.