Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Born in Germany in 1939, Norbert Lechner was granted honorary citizenship by the Senate of the Republic of Chile in 2003. He earned a bachelor's degree in law and obtained a doctorate in political science from the University of Freiberg in 1969. He visited Chile as a doctoral student and came to live there. From 1974 he was a professor and researcher in the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences in Chile (FLACSO). He was its director from 1988 to 1994. One of the central concerns throughout Norbert Lechner's theoretical analytical work was the creation of a theory of the state in Latin America. Texts such as La crisis del Estado en América Latina (1977), La conflictiva y nunca acabada construcción del orden deseado (1986), State and Politics in Latin America (1981), and Los patios interiores de la democracia (1990) speak of the urgent need in Latin American countries for political reflection as a guide to theoretical analysis, as well as a project to be constructed. Lechner takes on the analysis of the state as an object of research in order to account for the problems posed by social reality. From this perspective, the existing order is analyzed in order to carry out a critique, a negation of the prevailing situation with the goal of unraveling the logic of the system, transcending it, and creating a theoretical and practical reflection upon social change and the construction ... log in or subscribe to read full text