Presentation of the issue

New global order: crisis of modernity and setbacks to democracy

Abstract

James Gillray's famous cartoon, The Plumb-pudding in danger, or, State Epicures taking a Petit Souper (1805), masterfully depicts one of the founding moments of modern geostrategy: Napoleon Bonaparte and William Pitt the Younger, seated in front of a globe-shaped plum pudding, share the world like a dinner party. With their imperial tridents, Neptune's for Pitt, Pluto's for Napoleon, both embody the great powers' voracious appetite for global dominance. This satire, as lucid as it is current, synthesizes the logic of force that was imposed after the collapse of the revolutionary ideals of 1789 in Europe. While old Europe was restoring monarchies and repressing the emancipatory promises of enlightened modernity, Latin America was initiating a radical experiment: the constitution of sovereign republics based on enlightened reason, constitutionalism and popular representation. It was this contrast that marked a new configuration of the democratic ideal in the world that is still not sufficiently visible today.