Memory Politics and Accountability - Dr. Matt James
Dr. Matt James, University of Victoria, in an interview series " Expert Voices on Memory Politics", realized with the financial support of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Kanada and Erasmus+ Program of the European Union.
Dr. Matt James underlines the critical importance that accountability has for democracy. Fundamentally democracies are accountable to the will of the people for their legitimacy and need to operate on the basis of transparency to allow their citizens to hold political power to account. For Dr. James, the willingness to openly and transparently account for the actions of those entrusted with political authority lies at the heart of democracy.
In this perspective, memory politics points to the need of democracies to engage in long-term collective learning experiences with respect to the community’s shared history and in particular past injustices. According to Dr. James, there can be no accountability - as the foundational element of democracy - without memory. Commemorating the past as a collective endeavour creates a (national) political community and a sense of shared responsibility for the future.
EUCAnet (Europe Canada Network) is a hub for experts primarily located in Canada that work on European and Canadian current issues from a transatlantic perspective. These experts offer commentary and expertise and are available for media interviews and public talks. We are a public outreach platform – that makes scholarly knowledge available and meaningful to the public in times when the need for evidence based knowledge and public debate is crucial. Our goal is to foster the Canada Europe Transatlantic Dialogue with the aim of supporting the process of informing public policy making.
Focus on : European Studies, Transatlantic Studies, Global Studies, Issues of Democracy, Populism, Memory Politics, Migration.
Official Site: http://www.eucanet.org
