Memory and Power in Post-War Europe: Studies in the Presence of ...

German foreign policy-making since 1945 83
The main point of such an exercise is not to delineate some unified,
modal understanding of history. On the contrary, the aim is to identify
the different, often contending, views of history and the types of
lessons that are drawn from the past. 17 Collective historical memory is
not simply a record of past events; it is the intersubjective outcome of
a series of ongoing intellectual and political negotiations. The products
of these negotiations may achieve a certain degree of stability for a period
of time, but they are constantly subject to challenges and alternative
interpretations.
Having pinpointed the main parameters of historical debate in a
given political system at a particular point in time, the next step is to
investigate the policies that emerged out of the political process and to
analyse the ways in which they are legitimated. Although it is impossible
to prove definitively that historically grounded legitimations and arguments
were the actual causes of the policies that emerged, the analyst
can at least establish an association between certain types of historically
derived arguments and the underlying core principles on which foreign
policy was based. It then becomes possible to evaluate the actual strength
of the relationship between behaviour and beliefs by tracing the evolution
of both over time, monitoring how they evolved in response to historical
events and pressures.
Of central importance to the analysis is determining the degree of consistency
between behaviour and expressed historical memory over time.
If the beliefs and values of the actors shift without any corresponding
changes in behaviour, there is reason to question the posited relationship
between the two. Likewise, if behaviour changes without shifts in the
expressed beliefs associated with earlier policies, then again we have
reason to doubt that the two factors influence one another. In other
words, expressed historically grounded beliefs and values should develop
in tandem with defence and national security policy. When there is a disjuncture
between the two – between the existing norms and values and the
kinds of new policies that political actors are attempting to implement –
an appropriate degree of tension should be observable in the political
system.
Finally, it is necessary to identify the conditions under which a culture is
likely to change. Here it may be suggested that cultural systems, including
the types of lessons drawn from history, remain plausible only insofar as
17 In contrast to earlier generations of scholarly work on political culture, contemporary
theorists focus on culture as complex, fractured and defined as much by the boundaries
that it draws between itself and others as by its actual content. For a brief review, see Yosef
Lapid, ‘Culture’s Ship: Returns and Departures in International Relations Theory’, in
Yosef Lapid and Friedrich Kratochwil (eds.), The Return of Culture and Identity in IR
Theory (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1996), esp. 6–9.