(NON)POLITICAL TABOO: WHY DEMOCRACIES BAN HOLOCAUST DENIAL

• Authors: Steuer Max
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This article unpacks the controversy that surrounds criminal law restrictions on Holocaust denial in democracies. By applying insights from postmodernist and post-structuralist theories on amendments of criminal legislation in three Central European democracies, the author aims to understand the interplay between politics and truth in introducing legal bans on Holocaust denial. Through a comparative analysis of parliamentary discourse, he demonstrates that the various justifications in favour of such bans all postulate that truth should be separated from politics. In turn, this effort to transform the Holocaust into a taboo outside of politics has consequences on the nature of its remembrance.

Keywords

EN

HOLOCAUST DENIAL; JUSTIFICATION; PARLIAMENTARY DISCOURSE; CZECH REPUBLIC; SLOVAKIA; HUNGARY

• Publisher: Institute of Sociology, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Sociológia (Sociology)
• Year: 2017
• Volume: 49
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 673 – 693

Contributors

author

Steuer Max

• Comenius University in Bratislava, Faculty of Philosophy, Gondova 2, 814 99 Bratislava, Slovak Republic