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| Format: | Recurso digital |
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Zenodo
2026
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18225751 |
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Table of Contents:
- <h2>Coups Don't Come with Tanks Anymore... They Come with "We Will Save the Nation"</h2> <p dir="ltr">Throughout the 20th century, we could easily recognize the death of democracy. It was loud, clear, and swift. Tanks rolling through the streets of Santiago. Generals seizing radio stations in Bangkok. Constitutions suspended overnight. The collapse came from outside, born of violence, and ended in an instant.</p> <p dir="ltr">But in the 21st century, democracy is rarely murdered. More often, it is "persuaded to commit suicide."</p> <p dir="ltr">Today, democracy gradually crumbles from within, at the hands of charismatic leaders who rise to power through legitimate elections, then slowly dismantle the system from the inside. Political scientists meticulously document the symptoms of this decay: court capture, media silencing, gerrymandered districts. But we pay too little attention to the true cause. We busy ourselves repairing the "hardware" of the state while the "software" in citizens' minds is being destroyed by cognitive biases and algorithm-driven rage.</p> <p dir="ltr">This article proposes that the contemporary crisis of democracy is not merely institutional failure, but a failure of "mutual recognition." Strong democracy depends on a fragile psychological architecture—the capacity of citizens to view political opponents not as enemies to be destroyed, but as legitimate rivals with whom we share the same moral universe. When this capacity collapses, when partisanship becomes what psychologists call "affective polarization," the norms underpinning democratic governance dissolve.</p>