Social Pedagogies of Memory: How Political Discourse Shapes National Identity and Civic Engagement in Post-Communist Albania

Abstract

Historical memory represents an important dimension of contemporary politics through which societies interpret the past, construct collective identities, and shape citizens’ understanding of history, belonging, and democracy. Within this context, the study examines how references to the past, particularly to the Second World War and the communist period, are used in the construction of political discourse and electoral mobilization in post-communist Albania. The study adopts a qualitative interpretive approach, combining content analysis of the programmatic documents of the Socialist Party of Albania and the Democratic Party of Albania with discourse analysis of political communication as reflected in the newspapers Panorama, Tema, and Mapo during the period 2012–2024. The empirical corpus consists of 250 media articles, analyzed through a coding scheme based on eight discursive frames (four for each party), enabling the identification of both their presence and intensity. The findings reveal contrasting interpretations of the past. Socialist Party discourse emphasizes historical legitimacy, collective sacrifice, antifascist identity, and state-building continuity, while Democratic Party discourse focuses on anti-communism, victimization, Western orientation, and historical justice. The analysis further demonstrates that the intensity of these frames increases significantly during electoral periods, indicating that historical memory is strategically mobilized in competitive political contexts. Beyond elections, such narratives shape public understandings of identity, democracy, and belonging. Political discourse therefore functions as a form of public pedagogy through which competing interpretations of history are communicated and reproduced.