Remembering Democratic Time: Specters of Mexico's Past and Democracy's Future*.

This article examines the politics of memory at work in both Mexico's dirty war against political dissidents and the failed attempts to prosecute political leaders responsible for the atrocities. Utilizing information recently made available by the National Security Archive's Mexico Project, it explores how power relations influence public memory, and how this memory shapes democratic futures. A critical engagement with Jacques Derrida's Specters of Marx informs an analysis of how the past lives on in ways that challenge political attempts to achieve closure. Through this encounter, the article advances a line of questioning about what constitutes a democratic relationship to time capable of resisting a politics of amnesia. I argue that a more democratic conception of time departs from the conventional metaphors of understanding temporality by seeking an ideal where multiple experiences of time can be present concurrently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]