19th May 2021

Collective Memory in International Relations

Dr. Kathrin Bachleitner October 2018

Dr Kathrin Bachleitner is the the IKEA Foundation Research Fellow in International Relations at Lady Margaret Hall. Her new book “Collective Memory in International Relations” is out now with Oxford University Press!

Did you ever ask yourself how countries deal with their painful legacies of war, crimes and atrocities? And how these memories shape societies, their political decisions, and their values as they continue to act with the world community?  

Kathrin’s book locates the formation of a country’s legacy within the international environment and inquires how memories of victimhood or guilt guide states through time in world politics.

Through in-depth examinations of domestic and international landscapes in empirical cases, she explores four ways in which collective memory can manifest in IR: as a country’s political strategy; as its public identity; as its international state behaviour; and finally, as a source for its national values. A comparative case study of (West) Germany and Austria illustrates how significantly different interpretations of the Nazi legacy impacted their respective international policies over time. Taken together, her book investigates whether collective memory influences global outcomes and how and why it matters for International Relations.

The book is available online on SOLO, and here is the link to the publisher’s website.