The Impact of the Fragmentation of National Collective Memories on Foreign Policy. France Case Study
How do changes in the way national collective memories are shaped influence foreign policy? Appeals to shared representations of the past at an intersubjective level are an aid to decision-making and the justification of foreign policy. Given this, five factors are identified that undermine a government’s ability to shape national memory and explores the two main consequences. First, the justificatory utility of appeals to history is increasingly limited. Second, the disappearance of a consensual collective memory can lead to the emergence of “presentism” as the dominant mode of temporality in decision-making processes. This line of thinking is illustrated by an empirical analysis of the case of France, a country whose foreign policy is noted for its strong tradition of appeals to national history.