Abstract

ALVAREZ GARRO, Laura. Democracy and its counter-concepts in the decade of 1950-1959 in Costa Rica. Diálogos rev. electr. hist [online]. 2018, vol.19, n.1, pp.15-46. ISSN 1409-469X.  http://dx.doi.org/10.15517/dre.v19i1.30245.

This paper discusses the results of the analysis of the concept of democracy and its counter-concepts - dictatorship and Totalitarianism - during the period between 1950-1959, which emerges from a larger investigation entitled Political Concepts in Costa Rica during the period of 1950-1959: transformations and remainings, developed in the Centro de Investigaciones Históricas de América Central (CIHAC). It is exposed the content associated with these concepts and its political use by political and social actors in political publicity in two newspapers with national circulation - La Nación and La Extra -. It is concluded that for the period the association between democracy and national "identity" is installed and has reached the status of a myth, in which democracy appears as a hypostasized value.

Keywords : Dictatorship; Totalitarianism; Civil War; Political History; National Identity.

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