Reorientation of foreign memories in domestic political speech: Considerations and effects

Abstract

Within the “politics of memory,” this study conceptually expands understanding of the role of political leaders as active producers of memory. By considering the growing exchangeability of ideas and meanings across cultural and national borders, analysis demonstrates how political leaders adapt and reorient transnational memory narratives’ most iconic events. However, deliberately relying on memories from across the border also embody additional functions that are not entirely focused on the domestic. Identifying three considerations that affect how memories are used in political speech: audience, context, and memory, this study shows that political leaders re-narrate, change, and revise foreign memories so that new meanings and utilizations are devised. These intertwining memories contribute to the blurring of frontiers, bringing to the fore the everlasting debate between history and memory, truth and post-truth, and the exalted role of politicians in the construction of past events.