Confronting deliberative failures after extremist attacks: Memory activism and democratic resilience

This article examines the role of memory activism in the wake of far-right extremist violence and identifies the conditions under which it can strengthen democratic resilience. Combining insights from memory studies and deliberative democracy with an illustrative case of memory activism following the 2020 far-right attack in Hanau, Germany, the article identifies an overlooked democratic function of memory activism: exposing and addressing deliberative failures in the public sphere. It highlights four such failures – hegemonic listening, inattention to difference, epistemic injustice and tokenistic engagement – and shows how memory activists contest them through public acts of remembering while calling for a deeper, more inclusive democratic public sphere. It further argues that memory activists’ capacity to repair deliberative failures and contribute to democratic resilience depends on the institutional and cultural uptake of their claims and narratives across the broader public sphere.