Republican Liturgy and Counter-Performances: Protests and Struggles after the 2012 Presidential Inauguration in Mexico

Abstract

This article aims to analyze how a symbolic battlefield was defined and constructed in the mass media realm in which one side sought the defend the superiority of the Republican liturgy, while from the other side its current performance was questioned. The authors explore the confrontation of performative narratives of various natures that arose on the occasion of the inauguration of Enrique Peña Nieto as President of Mexico due to the controverted financing of his campaign. Peña Nieto and his staff sought to wane confrontation alluding to the liturgical nature of the investiture ceremony. Against this, a series of counter-performative acts were staged aimed at questioning him as a legitimate performer of those actions. This article reveals how the cultural sociology perspective sheds light on the agonal structure of civil and anti-civil codes of those performances. It allows understanding the configuration of Mexican politics, marked by a deficit to ensure representation mechanisms of demands, free discussion, and autonomous organization of decision centers. This study suggests that analytical tools linking the various Republican liturgies are yet to be developed in order to understand the new symbolic configuration of national politics.