Resumen

RUIZ-MENDEZ, Alberto. Time of polarization: a look at the crisis of democracy through populist political communication. Sintaxis [online]. 2024, n.13, pp.98-120.  Epub 12-Mayo-2025. ISSN 2594-1682.  https://doi.org/10.36105/stx.2024n13.07.

This article aims to offer a perspective of the current crisis of democracy based on the analysis of the political discourse of institutionalized populism or populism in power. When analyzing this form of political communication, from a performative approach, it is argued that one cause of the current democratic crisis is affective polarization, that is, a form of social fragmentation based not on political differences but on an identity border, whose main component is the figure of an enemy who is stripped of his legitimacy to participate in the collective decision-making that characterizes a modern democracy. The construction of this enemy, by institutionalized populism, is presented as a performative signifier, that is, as a discursive element with which a political action is carried out, in this case, the creation of a time of polarization that provokes a democratic crisis understood as a closure of the constant search to expand freedoms and rights.

Palabras llave : democracy; populism; affective polarization; political communication.

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