When: Wednesday, 7 June 2023, 17:00
Where: University of Vienna, Department of Political Science, Konferenzraum (room A 222), NIG, Universitätsstr. 7, 2nd floor, 1010 Vienna
Speaker: Peter Verovšek (Universität Groningen)
Chair: Fabio Wolkenstein (IPW | University of Vienna)
Cooperation partner: Dorothee Bohle (IPW | University of Vienna)
Abstract
While the accession of the first postcommunist states to the European Union (EU) in 2004 seemingly reunited the continent after 45 years of division, new political fault-lines soon emerged. I argue that the divergent understandings of nationalism, sovereignty and democracy in Europe at the start of the twentieth century – most often captured with the distinction between liberal and “illiberal” democracy – are rooted in collective remembrance. Whereas memory cultures organized around the defeat of National Socialism in 1945 emphasize overcoming nationalism, the protection of fundamental human rights, the constraining of popular sovereignty and a preference for multi-lateral diplomacy, those organized around communism and its fall in 1989, interpret nationalism as a source of liberation, stress the importance of majoritarian democracy, believe in the inviolability of popular sovereignty and are committed to the need for robust military capacity in international affairs. I argue that these different interpretations of the past must also be taken into account in discussions of the future of European integration, especially in light of the broader threat posed by Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
