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types of power

Formal power

Exercise of power regulated by the legislation, which generally requires the "use of the pen" and the observation of conventions and procedures.

Informal power

Exercise of power according to the sign codes of political life, a dimension that the law cannot regulate, but which has an effect (positive or negative) on the quality of the political regime (e.g. liturgies, speeches, negotiations, interactions, eye-to-eye commitments, handshakes, authority commands, etc.).

Authoritarian Inventory measures

Acts that employ tools of constant authoritarian reinvention. Authoritarian manifestations that coexist with the democratic regime and affect democracy as a system of choice of legitimate representatives or as institutional dynamics that protect rights and guarantee pluralism.

Attacks on pluralism and minorities

Measures that oppose the ideal of freedom in difference, coerce minorities to conform with the majority or with a position seen as majoritarian. They legitimize discrimination or relativize protections and rights guaranteed under the regime of pluralism.

Construction of enemies

Political-ideological measures that fuel a logic of 'us' versus 'them' in politics, the latter being understood as 'enemies'. Invoking them, actors affirm their identity through antagonism and invoke images of external threat.

Decrease of control and/ or centralization of power

The erosion of transparency mechanisms, weakening of the distribution of powers, concentration of decision-making power, and weakening of accountability mechanisms that constitute the constitutional democratic regime.

Legitimation of violence and vigilantism

Supporting or carrying out truculent or arbitrary actions, physical violence or monitoring, through justifications that tend to normalize the exercise of anti-democratic power - based on authority or into one's own hands - or the indiscriminate access to personal data.

Violation of institutional autonomy

Acts that endanger the institutional function by its own members or through external interference, due to political-ideological positions, partisan interests or personalist culture.

Emergency Measures

Acts justified by tackling the covid-19 pandemic or another emergency. Under the democratic constitutional regime, emergency acts must respect the Constitution and protect the rights to life and health. Even so, because they create exceptional restrictions related to the health crisis, they require constant control over their necessity, proportionality and temporal limitation. In the long run, they demand attention so as not to become an anti-democratic 'new normal' beyond the moment of emergency.

Centralization of power

Alteration of the distribution of powers in the constitutional democratic regime, centralization or concentration of powers and attributions that were previously separated between the instances of power.

Curtailment of fundamental rights

Extraordinary limitation of the scope of protection of civil, political and social rights due to the emergency situation.

Flexibilization of control

Simplification of formalities and processes, reduction of accountability and transparency of governmental acts in favor of swiftness and effectiveness during the emergency situation.

Increased police power

Expansion of controlled and inspected areas by public agents to implement restrictions, sometimes linked to the curtailment of fundamental rights, legitimized by tackling the pandemic or another emergency.