Interrupted Continuities: The Birth, Death, and Resurrection of Political Legacies

The aim of this proposal is to distinguish the concepts of local and state memory, identify separate measurement strategies for both, and investigate how they interact in their effect on legacies. The expectation is that when the state's reconciliation strategy is balanced, promoting the need to de-politicise the past, the local grievance narrative will be less likely to become re-attached to the political sphere. In other words, the presence of a somewhat reconciling state
narrative will reduce the risk of future generations re-polarising along the lines of previous conflict in the event of a new crisis. Building on my MPhil Thesis, which depicts the re-activation of civil war anti-communism in Greece via the post-crisis variation of Golden Dawn popularity, I wish to refine the theory of political legacies and test its implications in Greece and beyond. As my MPhil thesis studies the potential for re-activation in a long-stable democracy once torn by violent conflict, the obvious case for comparison would be Spain. Why did we not observe a similar rise of extreme-right voting in post-crisis Spain?
Was the past more hesitant to re-emerge there?
This is a proposal examining the interrupted continuities of past grievances. Defending a re-conceptualisation of the resilience of historical shadows, I will question their presumed linear effect, and demonstrate that the local experience of violence and destruction persistently haunts the informal, local sphere, escaping into the political realm if and when the opportunity structure arises.