Challenges of Professional Groups and Professionalism in Latin America in a Context of Disputes between Authoritarianism and Democracy

Starting in the 1970s, there has been a slow decline in the power of professional groups to ensure the training, work and reproduction of the professional field of their members. This weakening is not the same for all countries or for all professions or professional factions, which is why a comparative and historical approach to the relations between the State, Capital and Professions is necessary to determine the history and the productive and financial context of each.

It is necessary to know if these processes are more serious in contexts of political polarization or homogeneity of society and how this affects the political positions of group’s professionals against the different power alternatives. If there are internal fractures or hierarchies of some professions over others or general weakening.

The challenge is to understand if the above occurs due to the direct action of the advance of capitalism, accompanied by different models of power, or if it is the work of the public and private institutions that regulate these professions. If it is a question of a process of rationalization of capitalism that violates the power of professional groups, transforming the social context to which they belong, incorporating authoritarian or democratic mechanisms, or if the professional groups themselves tend to lose autonomy in the search for greater economic stability and political security. Do the transformations of social demands cause a weakening of the border between the established professions and other new professions under the effect of technological mutations?