Attack on the US Capitol: A Translation from the Mexican Civil Sphere

The 2021 assault on the United States (US) Congress was the result of a prolonged process in which dangerous forms of identification, solidarity, and restricted citizenship were activated among a significant segment of American society. Drawing upon five leading Mexican newspapers, this paper analyzes the efforts made within the Mexican civil sphere to control the meaning of the assault on the US Capitol. By doing so, this paper expands the scope of civil sphere theory by revealing the international connections among discourses in which civil and anti-civil semantics seek to translate the threats to democracy highlighted by this event. This translation represents an effort on the part of the distinct communicative and regulatory institutions to shape global semantics regarding the meaning of democracy. At an empirical level, our findings provide compelling evidence regarding the convergence between right-wing and left-wing illiberal strands in the public sphere. These contributions to civil sphere theory can draw researchers’ attention to the ways in which global disputes over events that occur in specific national spaces are constructed. Additionally, it broadens the analytical horizon for future research on civil dynamics in Latin America and other regions that face disputes over the meaning-making of contemporary democracies.