Dies irae: Why have liberal democracies failed to tame anger and violence?

Abstract

The 21st century has been marked by countless street protests in different regions of the world that have been unleashed by dissimilable political circumstances. The article has two objectives: first, to propose the political emotions of rage, resentment and desire for recognition as interpretative categories of expressions of citizen dissatisfaction vis-à-vis contemporary politics. Secondly, to warn that the inability of liberal democracies to domesticate violence is one of the greatest failures of political modernity. Thus, from the critical reading of the most relevant contemporary political philosophers in the Western sphere, both objectives will show that the crisis of liberal democracies and capitalism has structural roots and demand the reinvention of the triumphant paradigm in 1989 known as the End of History. © 2023 Departamento de Literatura Española-Universidad de Sevilla. All rights reserved.