Laying Foundations for Democratic Regimes through Memorialization Practices

Abstract

This article addresses the question of how the history of political violence targeting individuals on the basis of their race, religion, or ethnicity is memorialized in democracies. To what extent do states’ memorialization practices reflect their democratic values and institutions? The study addresses these questions by bridging the theoretical literatures of memory studies and political regimes. It compares two cases that differ in the circumstances under which they transitioned to democracy, but that have in common the history of political violence of exclusion. The first case includes the Holocaust memorials and monuments in Germany following the reunification, and the second case, the memorialization of the inter-ethnic violence in the 1990s in Bosnia and Herzegovina. By focusing on the memorials, rather than on the characteristics of a political regime, the article argues that memorials that are inclusive of different perspectives and experiences and those that encourage critical reflection and community involvement are more aligned with democratic values. The congruence between the characteristics of the political regime and those of the memorial should not be assumed even in the cases of consolidated democracies.