Thirty years after the revolutions of 1989, a divide between Western and Central Europe remains apparent. In his article “Caught between 1945 and 1989: collective memory and the rise of illiberal democracy in postcommunist Europe” published in the Journal of European Public Policy, Peter Verovšek argues that the commitment to the rule of law and protection of individual rights in West European democracies contrasts with the emphasis on the nation’s popular sovereignty and republican majority will characterising the approach to democracy in much of Central Europe. Peter notes that differences in societies’ collective memory, centred on two different historical ruptures, help explain the diverging conceptions of democracy in Western and Central Europe. While Western Europeans turn to the symbolic date of 1945, representing a repudiation of nationalism and the importance of protecting individual freedoms from the state, collective memory in Central Europe is shaped by the fall of communism in 1989, ending an oppresive political system imposed by an external power. Peter argues that “the differing memory cultures in these two regions help to explain why the West emphasizes the liberal protection of rights by a neutral, internationally embedded state, whereas postcommunist Europe emphasizes majoritarian voting and national sovereignty.”