The aim of this paper is to provide a map of European democratization looking at the influence of the legacies of the previous non democratic regime on public opinion and on the perception of democracy. In this assessment due attention is given to challenges, faced by the political system, structural constrains, capacities or strategies by elites. Those are considered as important and are worthy to be taken in account. Each country filtered the legacies in different way: many experiences have affected the perception of democratic institutions, in some countries linked with harsh economical and political circumstances. The working of the institutions builds up a positive or negative political learning able to account for the quality of democracy. The paper will be structured as follows. The first stage consists in an evaluation of perception of democracy and the attitudes towards the past in European countries by analyzing available data pooled down with the specific purpose of looking for the role of legacies. Afterwards, following up this goal, two questions will be raised, whether the symbolic policies are in some way relevant by the appraisal of their consequences on public opinion. Therefore, we should be able to answer at what extent the existence of collective memory among public opinion could affect the quality of democracy.

Considering the most relevant literature on the democratisation process, the goal of this project is to study the influence of previous regime legacies on the building of democracy in Germany after the Second World War. Specifically, the focus of our research is to analyse, through the parameterization of all the variables, the influence of previous regime legacies on outcomes of democratization: resulting achievements, time length, features, institutional setting. Moving from the definition reported in the literature, this research intends to analyse the role of four legacies: 1. stateness, that refers to the conditions and the degree of agreement that is at the base of the civic cohabitation; 2. statalism, that refers to the intrusiveness and interference of the central power into the citizen private life and in the economy; 3. party system and the political elites, that refers to the presence/absence of the single party within the new party system, and to the degree of change of the new political class and 4. political mobilisation, that refers to the effects produced by a systematic and continuous forced mobilisation (or for its long absence). Through the analysis of these four legacies it is also possible to put into evidence which one is more relevant, compared to the other, in the building of the democracy in Germany.

Over 60 years have passed since the end of the Second World War without it ever losing any of its importance in history, politics and society. Instead of receding into oblivion, the experience of repression, dictatorship and genocide is still at the centre of contemporary debates, creating divisions and tensions, legitimising political structures and justifying collective behaviour. One important aspect in dealing with a nation's past, is the way it is being commemorated publicly. The way an earlier totalitarian regime is remembered and commemorated is a good indicator of a nation's capacity to face the challenge of transition to democracy and can have profound implications for the development of a nation’s post-war national and European identity. The proposed paper deals with the question of how the experience of Nazism/Fascism has been remembered publicly in Italy and Germany since 1945. By tracing back discussions on how the Nazi/Fascist past should be remembered and by investigating disputes centring on the question of what should be evoked by establishing a specific calendar of official remembrance days, I am going to scrutinize the way Italy and Germany have come to terms with their past and consolidated their democracy. The analysis then serves as an additional observatory lens through which wider social, political and cultural developments can be analysed and put into context.

In the scientific debate on the theories of democratization and the role of legacies in the process of the democratic consolidation, the Russian case study has always been considered relevant for a better understanding and implementation of the main variables and indicators used for the analysis of the post-communist area as well as a theoretical challenge for those who are monitoring the evolution of the Russian political system after the collapse of the USSR. This approach has created a large amount of research and definitions on the “type of new democracies” and the emergence of the “hybrid regimes” in the post-communist countries, taking into consideration the quality of some political, social and economic “arenas” developed in the last 15 years. In such a perspective this paper aims to offer an overview of the Russian political change, with a particular relevance to the role of some specific legacies from the past which have influenced and paved the way to the recent Tandemocracy institutional setting.