Risks and threats posed by the absence of democratic memory: a case study of Nicaragua
Introduction
Democratic transition processes are historically complex and fragile, characterised simultaneously by the need to break with authoritarian regimes and the political demand for strong institutions. The experience of various countries shows that a merely formal transition does not guarantee its durability and, in this sense, the construction of a democratic memory is a determining factor for the sustainability of post-authoritarian systems.
The way in which a society interprets its past directly influences the perceived legitimacy of its institutions and the limits of what is considered acceptable within a democratic order. When past violence is trivialised, the very foundations of human rights are also weakened, opening the door to the normalisation of authoritarian practices in the present; this turns democratic memory into a constant arena of political contention, with the aim of upholding the foundations of a democratic future.
Today’s democracies are in clear decline, as most liberal democracies suffer from shortcomings that threaten their very existence. This article seeks to argue that some transition processes leading to memory policies have proved insufficient to address the challenges of increasingly complex societies. To this end, it will examine the case of Nicaragua, which illustrates the risk of a flawed memory policy and its consequences for the freedoms and rights of that country’s citizens.
Democratic Memory and Historical Revisionism
In recent decades, various Latin American societies have had to grapple with an uncomfortable challenge: rebuilding their democracies following periods of authoritarianism, political violence and serious human rights violations.
This is not merely a matter of reforming institutions, but of re-examining what happened and how those stories are told. Democratic memory has become a central element in strengthening the rule of law, by linking the recognition of victims with the establishment of guarantees against repetition. However, this process takes place in a contested arena, marked by tensions between remembering and forgetting, as well as by the emergence of revisionist and denialist discourses that seek to reframe, relativise or even deny historical facts. Understanding these dynamics is key to analysing how public memories are shaped and what impact they have on contemporary democratic quality.
Democratic memory is not simply a shared recollection of the past, but a political and cultural practice through which societies recognise, preserve and transmit experiences of violence, resistance and rights violations, with the aim of strengthening shared civic values and consolidating democratic institutions. In post-authoritarian contexts, memory becomes an inescapable element of public life: it constitutes a ‘past that refuses to pass’, which persists in the present and compels republican institutions to confront it (Jelin, 2002, p. 13). Democracies are not built solely through institutional reforms, but also through disputes over what that past means and who is responsible for it.
It is important to draw a distinction between memory and history. Whilst history aims for a coherent, chronological reconstruction based on methodological criteria, memory is dynamic, fragmentary and oriented towards the present, as it expresses needs for recognition, belonging and redress (Ameave, 2025, p. 19). This distinction helps us to understand that democratic memory does not seek to replace historical knowledge, but rather to act in the public sphere as a tool for the social and political recognition of traumatic events.
From a functional perspective, democratic memory plays a dual role. On the one hand, it fulfils a restorative function by recognising victims and restoring their dignity within the public narrative. On the other hand, it serves a preventive function by establishing symbolic and normative frameworks that deter the recurrence of political violence. In this vein, Haas and Lindstam (2024) demonstrate that inclusive historical narratives strengthen the sense of belonging and increase the political participation of historically marginalised groups, whilst exclusive narratives generate effects of inhibition and exclusion. Consequently, the way in which a society remembers is not neutral: it has a direct impact on the distribution of citizenship and representation.
Democratic memory, however, does not constitute a single or consensual narrative. According to Jelin, memories are the subject of constant dispute, as various actors compete to impose interpretations of the past that serve present political and social interests (Jelin, 2002, p. 55). Vidal-Beneyto reinforces this conflictual dimension by pointing out that collective memory does not arise spontaneously, but rather results from selective practices carried out by actors with sufficient legitimacy to establish a dominant narrative. In this sense, memory, identity and domination are closely intertwined (Vidal-Beneyto, 2007). Consequently, remembering and forgetting form part of the same political dynamic: all public memory also involves silences, exclusions and hierarchies.
Historical revisionism can be observed in the deliberate reinterpretation of the past for political or ideological ends. Its aim is to distort facts, trivialise crimes and reshape the public narrative in order to legitimise current political projects. Denialism, for its part, constitutes an extreme form of this phenomenon, either by directly or indirectly rejecting serious human rights violations or by reversing the roles of victims and perpetrators.
These phenomena must be understood as expressions of power. Given that collective memory is constructed through selective practices, revisionism operates precisely as a strategy to control which versions of the past gain social and institutional legitimacy (Vidal-Beneyto, 2007). According to Jelin, democratic transitions tend to open up the public sphere to previously censored narratives, but they also generate intense disputes over the meaning of the past, in which memory, truth and justice appear closely linked (Jelin, 2002, p. 68). In this context, revisionism and denialism function as mechanisms to block demands for historical accountability and undermine justice processes.
Bautista (2018) contributes to this understanding by observing that revisionism is sustained not only by disinformation, but also by ideological structures that offer an emotionally appealing narrative centred on national greatness, internal enemies and promises of restoration. Consequently, refutation based solely on facts proves insufficient, as revisionism also operates as a device for political identity.
Added to this is the dimension of the contemporary digital environment. Ortu et al. (2026) demonstrate that artificial intelligence systems can reproduce revisionist narratives, particularly through mechanisms of omission or ‘sanitisation’, whereby key facts are softened or removed from the narrative. This mechanism makes it more difficult to identify revisionism, as it presents itself under the guise of neutral narratives which, nevertheless, strip historical violence of its critical content.
In short, revisionism and denialism are not merely academic debates, but direct threats to democratic memory. By distorting the past, they erode society’s capacity to demand historical responsibility and accountability, undermine the recognition of victims, and compromise democratic quality by altering the collective frameworks through which a society defines justice, belonging and political legitimacy.
The case of Nicaragua
Based on the definition of democratic memory used above—understood as the act not only of remembering emblematic dates in the struggle for democracy but also of internalising values such as truth and justice, as well as providing redress for victims—it is possible to identify various cases in which democratic memory has been a factor of vital importance in preventing repetition.
In Nicaragua in 1984, Daniel Ortega won the elections with 67 per cent (CSE, 1984) of the vote in a context marked by civil war, a state of emergency that restricted certain civil liberties, and an attempted boycott by some sectors of the opposition represented by the Nicaraguan Democratic Coordination Committee (CDN). As the Cold War progressed, Nicaragua had become a focal point in the struggle for control of Latin America between the Soviet bloc and the US bloc; as such, various actors were funded by the major powers of the time to align themselves with one side or the other in the diplomatic conflicts characteristic of that era.
The conflict caused by the Contras, the implementation of the Patriotic Military Service Act and US intervention characterised Daniel Ortega’s first term in office. The end of Anastasio Somoza’s dictatorship presented major challenges for the Sandinista National Liberation Front. Initially, progress was made in terms of healthcare coverage and quality, as well as support for the education system; however, all these advances were overshadowed by the relentless rise of authoritarianism. This took the form, for example, of policies such as ‘Operation Red Christmas’, which involved summary executions, the burning of villages and the displacement of the population on the Caribbean coast (IACHR, 1981), as well as the passing of the General Media Act, which criminalised press freedom in an attempt to establish clear media hegemony (Leiken & Rubin, 1987) and the Patriotic Military Service, which, despite being justified by the state of war against ‘the Contras’, was enforced by force, a move that also marked a breaking point with the Catholic Church (Close, 1988).
These factors accumulated, representing a clear setback in terms of democratic quality – a development that led to the victory of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro. Broadly speaking, the Barrios de Chamorro government facilitated a process of demobilisation and pacification of the Contras and the Sandinista People’s Army (EPS) through the Toncontín Agreements (Close, 1999), and, furthermore, by implementing economic reforms comprising an austerity programme and a privatisation plan, it brought inflation under control and, above all, succeeded in depolarising and reconciling Nicaraguan society through its policy of ‘forgiveness and forgetting’ (Anderson & Dodd, 2005). This marked the beginning of the return of authoritarianism to Nicaragua.
The transition to democracy in Nicaragua left many fundamental issues unresolved, and in the midst of this, a series of events unfolded, such as the Alemán–Ortega pact, which reformed electoral laws and the constitution and agreed to share out quotas of power. It was in this way that the constitutional safeguards designed to prevent a return to authoritarianism were dismantled through political agreements beyond the control of the public.
Meanwhile, the right-wing became fragmented as a result of corruption scandals within the Liberal Party, and Daniel Ortega shifted away from a confrontational approach to promote an agenda of apparent national reconciliation. All these changes, taken together—though not exclusively—paved the way for the return to power of Sandinismo, a political movement that had mutated to the point of persecuting and imprisoning even members of its own ranks who viewed the consolidation of authoritarianism with concern.
The return to authoritarianism in Nicaragua was no mere coincidence, nor was it a stroke of bad luck: it was the consequence of a democratic transition process that proved ineffective in safeguarding the memory of the country’s recent past, as well as the failures of successive governments which, combined with scandals involving corruption and nepotism, disillusioned the civilian population. The risk of a poorly consolidated transition is, and always will be, a return to authoritarianism.
One of the most obvious factors that led to Daniel Ortega’s return to power was, without a doubt, the inability of democratic governments to ensure upward social mobility. In 1990, Nicaragua had a poverty rate of 50.3 per cent (World Bank, 2003) and by 2005 it was still considered one of the poorest countries in Latin America (World Bank, 2008). This clearly created a climate of frustration and social discontent that grew over time, whilst the political class became fragmented in the wake of repeated and varied corruption scandals, such as the La Huaca case (Aparicio, 2006) during Arnoldo Alemán’s government and the Alemán–Ortega pact.
Consequently, the return of Daniel Ortega and the sharp decline in democracy that followed were to be expected, given the absence of institutional checks and balances, a lack of historical memory, political and institutional amnesia, as well as the cunning and political calculation of the Sandinista National Liberation Front.
Conclusion
In short, democratic memory is not merely the preservation of history, but the process of collective recognition that links the past to present-day responsibilities. It functions as a mechanism for the defence of democracy by establishing public narratives about human rights violations and strengthening the critical citizenship necessary to identify and resist authoritarian practices. Without a democratic memory that is built collectively and deliberately, a society lacks the tools to recognise when its institutions are being co-opted or dismantled.
The risks of its absence are significant, as democratic transitions that avoid confronting the authoritarian past do not eliminate political conflict but merely postpone it under conditions less favourable to institutional defence. A population without a shared memory of the dangers of authoritarianism is vulnerable to the reconfiguration of power by repressive actors; in such a scenario, a return to authoritarian systems may present itself not as an obvious democratic rupture, but as one of several political alternatives, facilitating its consolidation without the resistance that a citizenry educated in democratic memory would have offered.
Nicaragua is a unique case in Latin America, as it features both elements of external influence (from the US and the USSR) and elements of internal influence (political parties, civil society and the Church), all of which have historically shaped the country’s politics. From the fall of the Somoza dictatorship until the authoritarian regression in 2007, the Nicaraguan people were torn between populist options on the left and right that offered no fundamental solutions to the country’s critical problems, such as poverty, corruption and insecurity. The governments that followed Daniel Ortega’s failed to lay the political foundations for the development of a genuine historical memory that would highlight the abuses committed under authoritarian rule; consequently, they allowed authoritarianism to return through the popular vote.
The lack of democratic memory, institutional weakness and the collusion of various actors in favour of private interests and to the detriment of democratic standards created the conditions for the decline of Nicaraguan democracy, where social problems have worsened and freedoms have been curtailed. Therefore, the case of Nicaragua clearly illustrates that the sustainability of democracy over time depends not only on the management of present-day conflicts, but also on the creation of a shared narrative that prevents a return to authoritarianism and is accepted by civil society as a whole.
By David Sebastián Flores Ojeda, a political scientist and researcher in the field of public policy and democracy, currently studying for a Master’s degree in Governance and Human Rights at the Autonomous University of Madrid; and Giulia Medea, a graduate in International Relations specialising in Human Rights, Social Responsibility and Global Citizenship, who is currently studying for a Master’s degree in Human Rights and Governance at the Autonomous University of Madrid.
This article was selected as part of the Call for Papers by FIBGAR’s ALERTA Latam Observatory, aimed at students on the Master’s in Governance and Human Rights at the Autonomous University of Madrid. We would like to thank the authors for their valuable contribution to this forum for analysis and critical reflection on the challenges facing Latin America, and for their commitment to promoting human rights, justice and democracy in the region.
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