The politics of rights (using rights for changing policies): Argentina in the Latin American scenario
The re-writing of Constitutions and the constitutional reforms taking place in various Latin American countries from the late 1980s represent, along with increasing legal mobilization, one of the principal sources of democratic change. This paper underlines some particular traces of the developing relationships between Constitution and society and focuses mainly in the Argentinean case. As it is well known, this country reveals an important socio-legal mobilization around the human rights frame that increasingly comprises a wider range of social claims. In particular, we will analyze the use of rights for changing policies and, broadly, the contribution of “activating” Constitutions to reframing democracy and citizenship inLatin America, outside their electoral dimensions.
