Memory and Democracy: Family Socialisation, Legacies, Transnational Influences & Political Attitudes

Conference Location and Date: Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS), Berlin, 21-23 April 2027

About the Conference

The questioning of established historical narratives and the instrumentalisation of history have been central features of the democratic backsliding witnessed in many countries over the last two decades. Contested narratives about the past circulate within Europe and beyond, and they have received growing scholarly attention for example in the context of the overt use of historical claims in Russia’s war against Ukraine, the rise of populist radical right parties across Europe, and changes in US politics under the Trump administration. Illiberal memory norms gain social traction, as authoritarian leaders and challengers can instrumentalise history in a way that also points to deeper shifts in collective memory. Shifts in what and how events are remembered are now strikingly visible across many countries. All of this is contributing to the profound crisis of legitimacy and capacity that characterises many democratic systems. The ways in which interpretations of the past relate to political attitudes and views on democracy remain, however, poorly understood.

In this concluding conference of the ERC Starting Grant project MoveMeRU, we aim to focus on the societal dimension in the relationship between memory and democracy. Specifically, we invite contributions that devote attention to three elements that help explain how perspectives on the past are transmitted and translated into political attitudes.

First, while memory and political attitudes are intuitively interlinked, the evidence of what kind of memory is conducive to democratic practices and attitudes remains scant. How societies engage with history is indicative of the quality of their democracy, while the capacity to self-critically deal with one’s past might be one factor in building resilient and inclusive democratic societies. We are particularly interested in how engagements with the past relate to attitudes towards democratic institutions, political participation, and democratic norms. Such dynamics depend, second, on family socialisation and legacies, which shape how an individual – or group – relates to history and politics. Such legacies may emerge from traumatic experiences such as displacement or oppression, previous regime types, but also from periods remembered as times of progress and prosperity that have a lasting influence on views on present-day politics. The intergenerational transmission of such past experiences is often subtle and unconscious, yet it has the potential to shape how a family places its own history in the national context across generations. At the same time, memories are reinterpreted, contested, or selectively appropriated across generations. Parents might influence their children to different degrees, directly in their function as role models or maybe indirectly in the sense that the choices adults make delimit children’s cultural, social and economic opportunities. Third, transnational influences shape how an individual relates to historical events. In families with a migration background, memories of the past may be informed by transnational practices and networks – even second-generation migrants without their own migration experience may be affected by the cross-border flow of ideas and values. Importantly, transnational influences are not confined to individuals with a migration background and may operate through social networks, transnational media environments, diaspora engagement or the activities of foreign states and institutions. Due to the transnational circulation of media and the attempts of foreign states to interfere in domestic affairs, the transnational dimension of historical memories and the multiple and overlapping ways in which the past is narrated deserve closer scrutiny.

Centred on these three realms, our conference seeks to bring together political and social scientists in order to empirically assess the relevance of memory politics and its reception by society for the functioning of democracies across Europe and further afield.

Papers may pick up on one or more of these aspects. They may, for instance, explore how authoritarian regimes appeal to their diaspora with historical messaging and how the targets of those messages engage with them, examine how legacies of family experiences matter for political attitudes across generations, or analyse the relationship between particular perspectives on past events and norms of historical remembering and political attitudes.

Timeline

Please submit your paper proposal as well as a short biography of about 200 words each by 15 October 2026 to the project coordinator Johanna Mogwitz (johanna.mogwitz@zois berlin.de). Applicants will be notified of our decision by 15 December 2026.
The conference is funded by the ERC Starting Grant MoveMeRU: Moving Russia(ns): Intergenerational Transmission of Memories Abroad (101042339) and at Home (PI Félix Krawatzek) and the Centre for East European and International Studies. We are therefore able to cover travel and accommodation costs for participants. Please note, that paper drafts will be circulated to facilitate discussion two weeks before the conference. Depending on fit, selected papers may come together in a special issue in due course.