Review: "The Politics of Memory in Post-Authoritarian Transitions, Vol. I: Case Studies, and Vol. II: Comparative Analysis"

Review: Author: Rafał Riedel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


The Politics of Memory in Post-Authoritarian Transitions, Volume One

The Politics of Memory in Post-Authoritarian Transitions, Volume One PDF Author: Joanna Marszałek-Kawa
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443870005
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
History is a powerful tool in the hands of politicians, and can be a destructive weapon since power over the past is the power to decide who is a hero and who is a traitor. Tradition, the memory of ancestors, and the experience of previous generations are the keys that unlock the door to citizens’ minds, and allow certain ideas, visions and political programs to flourish. However, can history be a proper political weapon during democratisation processes when the past is clearly separated from the present? Are the new order and society founded on the basis of some interpretation of the past, or, rather, are they founded only with reference to the imagined future of the nation? This book explores such questions through a detailed description of the use of remembrance policies during political transformations. It discusses how interpretations of the past served the accomplishment of transitional objectives in countries as varied as Chile, Estonia, Georgia, Poland, South Africa and Spain. The book is a unique journey through different parts of the world, different cultures and different political systems, investigating how history was remembered and forgotten by certain democratic leaders. Individual chapters discuss how governments’ remembrance policies were used to create a new citizen, to change a political culture, and to justify the vision of the society promoted by the new elites. They explain why some difficult topics were avoided by politicians, and why sometimes there was no transitional justice or punishment of the leaders of the authoritarian state. The book will be of interest to anyone wishing to explore policies of remembrance, democratisation, and the role of memory in contemporary societies.

The Politics of Memory in Post-authoritarian Transitions: Case studies

The Politics of Memory in Post-authoritarian Transitions: Case studies PDF Author: Joanna Marszałek-Kawa
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781443817066
Category : Memory
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
History is a powerful tool in the hands of politicians, and can be a destructive weapon since power over the past is the power to decide who is a hero and who is a traitor. Tradition, the memory of ancestors, and the experience of previous generations are the keys that unlock the door to citizens minds, and allow certain ideas, visions and political programs to flourish. However, can history be a proper political weapon during democratisation processes when the past is clearly separated from the present? Are the new order and society founded on the basis of some interpretation of the past, or, rather, are they founded only with reference to the imagined future of the nation? This book explores such questions through a detailed description of the use of remembrance policies during political transformations. It discusses how interpretations of the past served the accomplishment of transitional objectives in countries as varied as Chile, Estonia, Georgia, Poland, South Africa and Spain. The book is a unique journey through different parts of the world, different cultures and different political systems, investigating how history was remembered and forgotten by certain democratic leaders. Individual chapters discuss how governments remembrance policies were used to create a new citizen, to change a political culture, and to justify the vision of the society promoted by the new elites. They explain why some difficult topics were avoided by politicians, and why sometimes there was no transitional justice or punishment of the leaders of the authoritarian state. The book will be of interest to anyone wishing to explore policies of remembrance, democratisation, and the role of memory in contemporary societies.

Memory Politics in the Shadow of the New Cold War

Memory Politics in the Shadow of the New Cold War PDF Author: Grzegorz Nycz
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110752115
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
This book addresses memory politics and their evolution as an academic discipline, including memory studies. It explores national and international debates about conflicting interpretations of the recent past, including WWII remembering, the annexation of Ukraine, the reformed history teaching in Putin’s Russia, Historikerstreit and the holocaust in Germany, and the legacy and role of nuclear weapons in international relations in the USA in the context of the so called New Cold War.

The Politics of War Memory and Commemoration

The Politics of War Memory and Commemoration PDF Author: T. G. Ashplant
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 0415242614
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
A series of international case studies examine forms of war memory and commemoration, highlighting the relations of power that structure the ways in which wars can be remembered.

Memory and Political Change

Memory and Political Change PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780149847308
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
While political systems may change comparatively quickly, the social and cultural processes of adaptation and transformation take considerably longer. This volume explores memory as both a medium of and an impediment to change, offering an inroad into the problems, mechanisms and patterns involved in the complex processes that accompany the transition from authoritarian to democratic structures. Written by authors from different cultural and disciplinary backgrounds, the essays chart the terrain and supply well-documented case studies to extend knowledge on the relationship between social and political memory and the transition process.

Politics of Memory and Oblivion in the European Context

Politics of Memory and Oblivion in the European Context PDF Author: Taylor & Francis Group
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781032138930
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 114

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Book Description
This book provides novel and critical insights into the complex relationship between politics of memory and oblivion in European countries in the 20th and early 21st centuries as well as the cultural, political and institutional backgrounds against which they function. It explores the uses of the past in terms of a conscious choice to either reactivate or overlook memories as selective reference points for the promotion and legitimation of contemporary political goals. The chapters of this volume bring together theoretical discussions on the interrelationship between remembrance and purposeful oblivion as active processes that serve particular interests and ideologies in the present. By addressing the diverse meanings given to practices of memory, the contributions offer new perspectives on how institutions shape cultural memory, power relations and identity projects. Politics of Memory and Oblivion in the European Context: Critical Perspectives will be of interest to scholars and graduate students from the fields of memory studies, heritage studies, cultural studies, history, and political science who engage with the legacies of violent and traumatic pasts, post-colonial contexts, societal transition and reconciliation. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the European Politics and Society.

Twenty Years After Communism

Twenty Years After Communism PDF Author: Michael H. Bernhard
Publisher:
ISBN: 0199375143
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
"Remembering the past, especially as collectivity, is a political process, thus the politics of memory and commemoration is an integral part of the establishment of new political regimes, new identities, and new principles of political legitimacy. This volume is about the explosion of the politics of memory triggered by the fall of state socialism in Eastern Europe, particularly about the politics of its commemoration twenty years later. It offers seventeen in-depth case studies, an original theoretical framework, and a comparative study of memory regime types and their origins. Four different kinds of mnemonic actors are identified: mnemonic warriors, mnemonic pluralists, mnemonic abnegators, and mnemonic prospectives. Their combinations render three different types of memory regimes: fractured, pillarized, and unified. Disciplined comparative analysis shows how several different configurations of factors affect the emergence of mnemonic actors and different varieties of memory regimes. There are three groups of causal factors that influence the political form of the memory regime: the range of structural constraints the actors face (e.g., the type of regime transformation), cultural constraints linked to past political conflict (e.g., salient ethnic or religious cleavages), and cultural and strategic choices actors make (e.g. framing post-communist political identities)"--

Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives on Nationalism

Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives on Nationalism PDF Author: Taras Kuzio
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 3838258150
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 437

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Book Description
This volume brings together 15 articles divided into four sections on the role of nationalism in transitions to democracy, the application of theory to country case studies, and the role played by history and myths in the forging of national identities and nationalisms. The book develops new theories and frameworks through engaging with leading scholars of nationalism: Hans Kohn's propositions are discussed in relation to the applicability of the term 'civic' (with no ethno-cultural connotations) to liberal democracies, Rogers Brubaker over the usefulness of dividing European states into 'civic' and 'nationalizing' states when the former have historically been 'nationalizers', Will Kymlicka on the applicability of multiculturalism to post-communist states, and Paul Robert Magocsi on the lack of data to support claims of revivals by national minorities in Ukraine. The book also engages with 'transitology' over the usefulness of comparative studies of transitions in regions that underwent only political reforms, and those that had 'quadruple transitions', implying simultaneous democratic and market reforms, as well as state and nation building. A comparative study of Serbian and Russian diasporas focuses on why ethnic Serbs and Russians living outside Serbia and Russia reacted differently to the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the USSR. The book dissects the writing of Russian and Soviet history that continues to utilize imperial frameworks of history, analyzes the re-writing of Ukrainian history within post-colonial theories, and discusses the forging of Ukraine's identity within theories of 'Others' as central to the shaping of identities. The collection of articles proposes a new framework for the study of Ukrainian nationalism as a broader research phenomenon by placing nationalism in Ukraine within a theoretical and comparative perspective.

After Authoritarianism

After Authoritarianism PDF Author: Monika Nalepa
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009075349
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
Transitional justice – the act of reckoning with a former authoritarian regime after it has ceased to exist – has direct implications for democratic processes. Mechanisms of transitional justice have the power to influence who decides to go into politics, can shape politicians' behavior while in office, and can affect how politicians delegate policy decisions. However, these mechanisms are not all alike: some, known as transparency mechanisms, uncover authoritarian collaborators who did their work in secret while others, known as purges, fire open collaborators of the old regime. After Authoritarianism analyzes this distinction in order to uncover the contrasting effects these mechanisms have on sustaining and shaping the qualities of democratic processes. Using a highly disaggregated global transitional justice dataset, the book shows that mechanisms of transitional justice are far from being the epilogue of an outgoing authoritarian regime, and instead represent the crucial first chapter in a country's democratic story.