Latinobarómetro 2021 as an Object Discourse. Significant Tensions Between Polyarchical Democracy and Democracy in Castoriadis

Abstract

40 years after its recovery, Argentine democracy has been threatened in the last decade by the emergence of discourses and practices that endanger the continuity of the democratic pact, to which is added a certain social dissatisfaction with their results regarding quality of life and well-being. We propose to consider the Latinobarómetro Report 2021 as the material support of an object discourse in which stable discursive traces can be identified that relate its significant properties to the conditions of production and recognition of the discourse of polyarchic democracy. From there, and in the context of the procedural and substantive discourses of democracy, we propose to promote an exercise of democratic analysis and questioning, based on three significant tensions: 1) trust in institutions/institutional openness; 2) freedom of expression/self-limitation and 3) representative democracy/direct democracy for which Castoriadis’ grammar operates as a critical reading from a discursive production that can be considered non hegemonic. Tensions two and three, as can be seen, significantly relevant to the situation of Argentina's democracy today.