Abstract
This chapter intends to contribute to a better understanding of the reasons why the issues of the authoritarian past remain present and divisive in some consolidated democracies. The starting point is the growing consensus around the idea that, with time, the ‘politics of the past’ becomes instrumentalized as part of the ‘politics of the present’ (Welsh, 1996; Elster, 2004; Williams, Fowler and Szczerbiak, 2005; Wüstenberg and Art, 2008). The goal of the chapter is to examine, by focusing on two European democracies – Poland and Spain, to what extent political elites perceive the issues of the past as being able to provide political gains.
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© 2013 Filipa Raimundo
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Raimundo, F. (2013). Dealing with the Past in Central and Southern European Democracies: Comparing Spain and Poland. In: Mink, G., Neumayer, L. (eds) History, Memory and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137302052_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137302052_9
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-34638-7
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