March 24, 2023 at 12:00 pm on the Microsoft Teams platform will be held the next expert seminar with Prof. Peter J. Verovšek from University of Groningen, Netherlands entitled "The Mnemonic Battle between Liberal and Illiberal Democracy: Collective Memory and Conflicting Visions of Sovereignty in Europe".
Abstract: While the accession of the first post-communist states to the European Union (EU) in 2004 seemingly confirmed the newfound unity of Europe, new divisions soon emerged, most notably regarding their differing understandings of democracy. I argue that the divergent understandings of liberal and “illiberal” democracy – which correspond to the theoretical division between liberal rights protection and the republican tradition based on majoritarian popular sovereignty in democratic theory – are rooted in collective remembrance. Whereas memory cultures organized around the defeat of National Socialism in 1945 emphasize the need to protect fundamental human rights, those organized around 1989, i.e., the experience of occupation and the loss of political control under communism, emphasize domestic popular sovereignty. Building on Jürgen Habermas’s discursive model, I argue that a European public sphere is necessary to mediate these between these different memories and the differing conceptions of the democracy they foster.
Peter J. Verovšek is an Assistant Professor (UD1) in the History and Theory of European Integration at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. His first book, Memory and the Future of Europe: Rupture and Integration in the Wake of Total War (Manchester University Press, 2020), received an honorable mention for the Best Book Prize of the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES) and was shortlisted for the Memory Studies Association’s First Book Prize. His work has been published in several different forums, including Perspectives on Politics, the Journal of European Public Policy, The Review of Politics, Political Studies, Memory Studies, Polity, Millennium and the public engagement platform Social Europe.
