Pièges et ressources de la mémoire dans les relations intemationales

Abstract

How should the past be managed and how should its impact on international relations be measured? Our memories of past events are constantly being manipulated by our experiences in the present. The past may therefore influence and constrain our foreign policy through a series of techniques and representation that our political leaders use in order to remember it. Whether a logic stressing the memory of the confrontation, typical of overvalorization, to one which works on memories, numerous interpretations of the past emerge. The need to decompartmentalize memories then spares the development of an aggressive memory without removing past events. This work on memory is not a panacea applicable to all conflicts, but it remains nevertheless one of the only existent methods that may derive compromises and create social links.