Podcast: Collective memory, populism, and the future of democracy

Podcast: Collective memory, populism, and the future of democracy

In the first iteration of the EUCAnet podcast series, co-sponsored by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Canada, Dr. Oliver Schmidtke explores the link between collective memory and democracy. The podcast explores how forms of collective memory have gained public prominence over the past years as a reaction to a sense of profound crisis in how liberal democracies are governed. Drawing on a range of leading scholars in the field, Oliver Schmidtke discusses how democracy is critically shaped by historical narratives in the public arena. He addresses different – and at times competing – ideas what democracy and popular sovereignty is in various contexts across Europe. In particular, the podcasts considers how right-wing populism has challenged the foundational ideas of liberal democracy in the name of an alternate way of representing the ‘will of the people’.