The Story Behind the System: A Mnemonic and Semiotic Approach to Democracy and the Threats Facing it

Traditional political science research on democratic backsliding has failed to stop its acceleration around the globe. The current situation therefore demands new and creative approaches to understanding democracy and how the threats to it arise. By integrating memory studies, semiotics, and political theory, this paper proposes a novel theoretical and methodological framework for studying democracy through the lens of collective memory. Using Juri Lotman’s work on cultural semiotics as a theoretical and methodological starting point, it works with the 2018 centennial celebration in Czechia and the subsequent political rhetoric about the Czech democratic narrative as an empirical case study to develop this framework, aiming to offer a new way to track threats arising against democracy. So far, memory studies has deeply engaged in the question of how memory and democracy intertwine. For example, there are numerous studies on how memory work by governments or other political actors can contribute to the establishment and entrenchment of new democracies, how democracies might adequately confront historical crimes, and how, conversely, activist memory work by politicians can threaten democracy through, for example, exclusionary rhetoric. Significant works integrating memory studies and political theory have shown how memory might serve democracy by building national cohesion. However, these approaches all still conceptualize memory and democracy as two separate things, positioning remembering and collective memory as something that might impact the strength of a given democracy one way or another. By viewing democracy as a mnemonic narrative that political movements can bolster and contest, this approach moves beyond that dominant paradigm. It begins with a question: what could be revealed about the strength or weakness of a given democracy by viewing it through the lens of memory as an interpretation of the past that becomes dominant in each democratic nation? This paper conceptualizes it as a master, or hegemonically accepted, narrative of the past that culminates in a democratic system in the present and represents this democracy positively. Using semiotics as a methodological starting point allows for an analysis of the myths, values, and layered meanings that each significant sign – for example, major historical figures, events, or national symbols – represents in this narrative. Crucially, this then enables an analysis of how political movements contest the meanings of these signs and the dominance of the narrative. In this view, democratic backsliding not only changes governmental systems, but also contests the democratic master narrative and the underlying values of democratic states. To demonstrate the potential of this approach, it will assemble the Czech democratic narrative through a semiotic analysis of media coverage of the Czech centennial celebration in 2018. It will then show how Czech politicians have rearticulated, contested, and bolstered the elements of this narrative – and thus also Czech democracy – in their rhetoric since the centennial. Through this preliminary application, this paper aims to share the framework for testing and refinement using other national contexts.