Kosmopolitische Erinnerung und reflexive Modernisierung: Der politische Diskurs der Zwangsarbeitsentschädigung

This article analyzes how current processes of Globalization and Europeanization are changing the parameters of how states remember their pasts. The conventional concept of »collective memory« is firmly embedded within the »Container of the Nation-State». Reflexive Modernization, we argue, is reconfiguring the implied connection between memory and nationhood. Analyzing the political discourse about the restitution for Nazi victims of forced labor practices, we discover two processes: there is a cosmopolitanization of memory that is cracking the national container and is characterized by a reflexive attempt to incorporate the history and memory of the »other»; in reaction to this de-coupling of nation-state and memory, a re-nationalization of memories can be observed. It is marked by attempts to refocus attention to national victims counter-acting the cosmopolitan focus on victims of the national project. In this contested process, the nation-state is being re-valued in an emerging transnational European memoryscape. These developments carry significant theoretical implications for the theory of reflexive modernization. Most notably, it complements the notion of reflexivity (with its emphasis on reflex) with the growing significance of reflection (stressing the self-conscious deployment of new memory cultures).