Social Representations of History

To illustrate, after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, NATO allies of the United States with similar objective interests reacted in very different ways. Britain became America's principal military ally, first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq. France dispatched troops to Afghanistan, but with greater reluctance and side-by-side with a philosopher (Bernard-Henri Levy) to both question and provide for moral support for French efforts. In Germany, debate over whether to support American war efforts triggered the first vote of confidence in a ruling party's government in over 20 years. Keywords: social representations theory; symbolic representations; warfare; realistic conflict; political culture; psychology of legitimacy; historical contingency; historical charters; historical narratives; collective remembering; collective guilt; social memory; social identity; group identity; nationalism; ethnocentrism