The Criminalization of Social Protest by the State. From Repressive Law to a New Right

This article analyzes the structural criminalization of social protest by the State in democratic contexts, with emphasis on Latin America. Using a historical-materialist  methodology, it examines in detail the cases of systematic repression in Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru, briefly referring to the student mobilizations against the war in Gaza in the United States, Europe, and England, and
contrasting them with an examination of the destabilizing uprisings in Venezuela, Serbia, and Yugoslavia.
The selection of cases is justified by their historical relevance, the intensity of state repression, the incidence of arbitrary detentions, and their connection to  ounterinsurgency doctrines promoted by the United States to safeguard foreign direct investment. The theoretical framework brings together the notions of the state of exception (Agamben), law-founding and law-preserving violence (Benjamin), the myth of the general strike (Sorel), and class struggle (Marx and Engels) to understand how law rationalizes repression under principles of security within the liberal-democratic-bourgeois order. The article proposes a normative reconstruction that distinguishes between legitimate social protest and the reactionary agitation of destabilizing uprisings. It argues for the need for a new legal paradigm that dignifies dissent, recognizes protest as a foundational political right, and establishes constitutional, criminal, and administrative guarantees
for its protection. This proposal draws on authors such as Gargarella, Magrini, and Cordero Heredia, and seeks to redefine the use of state force, legality, and democratic participation in both national and international arenas.