Negations and Antagonisms in Youth Political Participation within Morena and Mexico’s Transformation Project

Abstract

This study analyzes the significance of youth political participation within Mexico’s Morena party during the Fourth Transformation (2019–2024), employing a semiotic-political framework. It contends that discursive production operates not only through affirmations or antagonisms but also through negations that structure the boundaries of articulate discourse. Focusing on a youth delegate and a local Morena brigade, the study integrates political-discursive analysis with Greimas’ actantial model and the semiotic square. Three dynamics emerge: silences as constitutive exclusions; the tension between youthful authenticity and institutional bureaucratization; and discursive interstices enabling resignification. The findings propose a theoretical-methodological expansion of political analysis, revealing negations as meaning-generating absences. Consequently, the sustainability of transformative projects hinges on their capacity to engage excluded elements as part of a constitutive dialogue.