Abstract

Most descriptive and normative theories of political identity can be plotted between two poles. At one end are accounts of particular cultural political identities, which are based on inherited and primarily homogeneous cultural elements. At the other pole are accounts of ‘civic’ identities, strictly political identities grounded in uncoerced consent to a set of laws, political procedures and institutions. My thesis is that to understand and to encourage the formation and maintenance of viable political identities within the context of multicultural, democratic societies it is necessary to attend to the role that memory, and particularly memory of suffering and shame, plays in that process. Working through memories of suffering and shame is a precondition for developing the cross-cultural and trans-national empathy and understanding that are instrumental in creating stable multicultural, democratic nations and, eventually, a just cosmopolitan global order.