Popular sovereignty rethought for our Latin American present from Jose Artigas

We present here a work to rethink the concept of Popular Sovereignty, the basis for Political Science and for the so-called “International Relations” from a popular and decolonized perspective through a reflection on the thought and praxis of José Artigas. This leader of the Banda Oriental of Uruguay was, at the beginning of the 19th century, one of the references of the popular processes of colonial emancipation for the entire region. The originality of his work has provided elements that we present here with the aim of contributing to a redefinition of the aforementioned concept in relation to the current situation of our Latin America and the Caribbean. To do so, we analyze the doctrinal elements and its determining revolutionary context; the social basis of the Artigas movement; the processes of popular articulation that it encourages; and, from there, we propose some points of reflection for a resumption of the primacy of the concept of Popular Sovereignty and to enrich its use as an expression of the will of our peoples and as a positive determinant for the processes of regional integration.