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Coming to terms with the past. A framework for the study of justice in the transition to democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Jon Elster
Jon Elster
Affiliation:
University of Columbia, (New York).
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Abstract

After the transition from an authoritarian to a democratic regime, one commonly observes trials of the agents of the former regime and efforts to compensate its victims. In our century, waves of transitional justice have occured in German-occupied countries after 1941, in South- Eastern Europe in the 1970s, in Latin-American countries in the 1980s, and in post-Communist countries after 1989. The article proposes a framework for the behavioral study of these phenomena. The dependent variables are political decisions to pursue retroactive justice after the transition. Independent variables include the constraints of the actors, their motivations and beliefs, as well as the mechanisms by which individual policy preferences are aggregated into binding collective decisions.

Après effondrement d'un régime autoritaire et passage à la démocratic, on observe d'ordinaire des mises en accusations d'agents de l'ancien régime et des efforts de compensation en faveur des victimes : ainsi, après 45, dans les pays libérés de l'occupation nazie, en Grèce puis en Amérique latine dans les arnnées 1980 et enfin, après 89, dans les pays du feu bloc communiste. L'article propose un cadre pour une étude de développement de ces phénoménes. Les variables dépendantes sont les décisions politiques de justice rétroactive. Les variables indépendantes comprennent les contraintes des acteurs, leurs motivations et croyances, ainsi que les mécanismes d'aggrégation des préférences politiques individuelles en décisions collectives.

Folgt ein demokratischer Staat auf einen autoritären kommt es gewöhnlich zur Anklage der »Agenten« des vorhergehenden Regimes und zur ansatzweisen Entschädigung der Opfer. In unserem Jahrhundert kam es mehrmals zu einer sogenannten Übergangsjustiz: nach 1945 in ehemals von Nazi-Deutschland besetzten Ländern, in den 8oer Jahren in Süd-Ost-Europa, in den 8oer Jahren in Lateinamerika und nach 1989 in den Ostblockstaaten. Dieser Aufsatz skizziert in Umrissen die Verhaltensstudie dieser Phänomene. Die abhéngigen Parameter beinhalten sowohl die Zwänge der handelnden Personen, ihre Beweggründe und ihre Überzeugungen, als auch die Mechanismen, die cine Umwandlung individueller politischer Vorgänger in verbindliche Gemeinschaftsentscheidungen erlauben.

Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , May 1998 , pp. 7 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1998

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References

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(2) Local Justice (New York: The Russell Sage Foundation, 1992)Google Scholar and Local Justice in America (New York: The Russell Sage Foundation, 1995)Google Scholar. Cohen, J., The arc of the moral universe, Philosophy and Public Affairs 26 (1997), 91–134CrossRefGoogle Scholar argues more ambitiously that moral facts themselves, such as the injustice of slavery, can have explanatory force. I shall only rely on the uncontroversial idea that people's subjective conceptions of justice—like other mental states—can have causal efficacy.

(3) To pursue the analogy with local justice: when discussing the principle of seniority in layoffs from firms I have argued both that it owes much of its appeal to a conception of justice as desert (the more senior workers deserve to be retained because they have devoted the life to the firm) and that this conception is invalid (since this ‘devotion’ does not normally entail any sacrifices, it cannot generate an entitlement).

(4) In addition to his analytical gifts, Nino could rely on his experience as a participant-observer of the Argentinean transition.

(5) See de Berthier de Savigny, G., La Restauration (Paris : Flammarion, 1955)Google Scholar, Chs. V and VII. Whereas the first Restoration left most of the administration in place, the second proceeded to a ‘white terror’ that involved large-scale purges. The second Restoration respected the decision taken under the first to restitute all properties that had been confiscated from the nobility and remained in the hands of the state, but not those that had been sold to particulars. As we shall see below, this was also the solution chosen in Athens in 403 B.C.

(6) I rely heavily on Loening, T. C., The Reconciliation Agreement of 403/402 B.C. in Athens (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1987)Google Scholar (= Hermes Einzelschriften, Heft 53). The main source is Aristotle, The Constitution of Athens.

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(10) The example suggests that to the varieties of democratization listed by Stepan, A. (Paths towards redemocratization, in O'Donnell, , Schmitter, and Whitehead, (eds), Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1986, 64–84)Google Scholar, we should add ‘Redemocratization initiated by an external non-democratic regime’.

(11) Loening, The Reconciliation Agreement, 130–46.

(12) Ibid., p.83.

(13) Ibid., p. 47.

(14) Ibid., p. 102. In light of the examples from Lysias cited in the text, his argument seems more plausible than that of Loraux, N., La cité divisée: L'oubli dans la mémoire d'Athènes (Paris : Payot, 1997)Google Scholar, for whom the core of the reconciliation treaty was a ban on referring to past strifes in any way whatsoever.

(15) Moore, Aristotle and Xenophon on Democracy and Oligarchy, p. 272. For the alleged illegality of this execution, see also Loening, The Reconciliation Agreement, p. 29.

(16) Loening, The Reconciliation Agreement, p. 71. The argument is in Lysias 12. 25 ff.

(17) Loening, The Reconciliation Agreement, p. 52.

(18) Ibid., p. 66.

(19) Although it may seem pedantic, let me state that I limit myself to negative measures of punishment taken on the basis of what people did and positive measures of compensation taken on the basis of what people had done to them. One might define the scope of retroactive justice so as also to include positive measures or rewards to individuals on the basis of what they did, but I shall not do so. Except for decorations, these rewards were rarely allocated by any formal process.

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(26) Cited after Lottman, L'épuration, p. 313.

(27) Some perpetrators also received immunity. Thus in 1947 the Belgian government suspended, for the period between May 10, 1940 and July 10, 1945, the application of a law from 1795 that would have enabled collaborators to obtain compensation for violence against themselves or their property (Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations, 50–51). The late cut-off date is explained by the ‘second wave’ of pillages that took place in May-June 1945, after the return of prisoners of war from Germany.

(28) Andenæs, Det Vanskelige Oppgjøret, 62–63.

(29) Lottman, L'épuration, 144.

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(37) Lottman, L'épuration, 51, 335.

(38) Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations, p. 220.

(39) Tamm, Retsopgøret efter Besœttelsen, p. 368.

(40) Ibid., p. 757.

(41) Ibid., p. 761; italics added.

(42) Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations, p. 64.

(43) In Denmark, party membership was not deemed a ground for prosecution (Tamm, Retsopgøret efter Besœttelsen, p. 386). In Norway, the Supreme Court decided on various grounds that it was (Om Landssvikoppgjøret, Oslo: Justis-og Politidepartementet, 1962, 95–99)Google Scholar. The difference can be explained by the much more important role of the Norwegian party in enforcing German rule.

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(48) Om Landssvikoppgjøret, p. 239.

(49) Tamm, Retsopgøret efter Besœttelsen, 93.

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(53) Thus, after the liberation of France, young men who had enrolled in the militia and similar bodies could redeem themselves by enlisting in the French expeditionary force to Indochina (De Gaulle, , Mémoires de Guerre, Paris: Plon 1989, p. 704Google Scholar).

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(62) There is obviously a risk that these measures might be taken in order to serve those needs rather than to determine the just treatment of the wrongdoers, i.e. that the goals of vengeance or catharsis might come to replace that of retribution. See also V below.

(63) Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations, 102.

(64) Lottman, L'épuration, 135, 182, 328.

(65) Ibid., p. 300.

(66) Andenæs, Det Vanskelige Oppgjøret, 125–34.

(67) Memorandum on the applicability of international agreements to the screening law, in Kritz, (ed.), Transitional Justice, vol. III, 335–345, at p. 342.Google Scholar

(68) Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations, p. 42.

(69) Lottman, L'épuration, p. 225.

(70) Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations, 72, 90–93.

(71) Tamm, Retsopgøret efter Besœttelsen, 135–36.

(72) Ibid., p. 133.

(73) Memorandum on the applicability of international agreements to the screening law, p. 344.

(74) Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations, p. 42.

(75) Tamm, Retsopgøret efter Besœttelsen, 758–59.

(76) Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations, 72–73.

(77) Nino, Radical Evil on Trial, 67 ff.

(78) Tamm, Retsopgøret efter Besœttelsen, p. 83. In Norway the resistance movements strongly opposed special courts, on the grounds that they were identified with the arbitrary legal practices of the occupying power (Om Landssvikoppgjøret, 51–52).

(79) Tamm, Retsopgøret efter Besœttelsen., P. 119.

(80) Lottman, L'épuration, 43, 107 ff.

(81) Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations, p. 134.

(82) See Andenæs, Det Vanskelige Oppgjøret, p. 119 ff., who demonstrates the flaws in the arguments offered by the Ministry of Justice for the non-retroactivity of the punishments.

(83) Tamm, Retsopgøret efter Besœttelsen, 71–72, 75, 121.

(84) Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations, 64–65.

(85) ‘Memorandum on the applicability of international agreements to the screening law’, p. 343.

(86) Lottman, L'épuration, p. 52. On the similar procedure in Belgium, see Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations, 28–29.

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(89) Nino, Radical Evil on Trial, p. 67.

(90) ibid., 92–94.

(91) Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations, 161–80; Tamm, Retsopgøret efter Besœttelsen, 256–62; Andenæs, Det Vanskelige Oppgjøret, 226–30.

(92) For similar comments about the need to respect legality in the trials after World War II, see Andenæs, Det Vanskelige Oppgjøret, p. 62; Lottman, L'épuration, 50, 109, 186; Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations, p. 100.

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(97) Ibid., p. 78.

(98) Nino, Radical Evil on Trial, 111–12.

(99) Tamm, Retsopgøret efter Besœttelsen, p. 100.

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(101) This was the stated goal of the first Belgian government in 1944 (Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations, p. 113). In practice, the Catholic party opted for trials that were ‘rapid and equitable’, while the other parties wanted them to be ‘rapid and effective’ (ibid., 124–25).

(102) Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations, p. 231, who consider and reject the hypothesis that the trend is an artifact of the most serious crimes having been tried first; Tamm, Retsopgøret efter Besœttelsen, Ch. 7; Andenæs, Det Vanskelige Oppgjøret, p. 229.

(103) Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations, p. 115, who also cite three other reasons for desiring quick trials. Note that the reasoning goes against the usual advice of postponing action until one's anger has spent itself.

(104) Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations, p. 77.

(105) Kraus, M., Settling accounts: Post-communist Czechoslovakia, in Kritz, , (ed.), Transitional Justice, vol. II, 575–578, at p. 577.Google Scholar

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(110) Nino, Radical Evil on Trial, p. 80.

(111) Nunca Más—Report of the Argentine Commission on the disappeared (extracts), in Kritz, (ed.), Transitional Justice, vol. III, 3–47, at p. 13.Google Scholar

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(114) Tamm, Retsopgøret efter Besœttelsen, 737–44. The minister of justice at the time defended retroactive legislation by forward-looking arguments: ‘if the country were again to fall into the hands of an enemy, should it remain defenseless against treason and murder because legislation is paralyzed and nobody in peacetime had envisaged crimes of this gravity?’ (ibid. p. 738).

(115) Om Landssvikoppgjøret, 83–94, 513–17; Andenæs, Det Vanskelige Oppgjøret, 207–19. Also, as noted above, the Ministry's denial of retroactive punishment was less than convincing.

(116) Nino, Radical Evil on Trial, p. 120.

(117) Andenæs, Det Vanskelige Oppgjøret, 268–69.

(118) Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations, 98, 105–6; Tamm, Retsopgøret efter Besœttelsen, 75, 80, 105, 120; Lottman, L'épuration, 110, 136, 179, 201.

(119) Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations, p. 98; Tamm, Retsopgøret efter Besœttelsen, 80, 105.

(120) Les Caractères IV.77. For a fuller discussion, see my Alchemies of the Mind, forth-coming from Cambridge University Press, Ch. V and passim.

(121) As I explain in Local Justice, 172–74, alliance-formation on the basis of different ultimate motivations is also common in the allocation of scarce goods.

(122) Nino, Radical Evil on Trial, p. 116.

(123) Hayner, Fifteen truth commissions, p. 230.

(124) Nino, Radical Evil on Trial, p. 112; see also the debate between Nino, and Orentlicher, Dianein Kritz, (ed.), Transitional Justice, vol. I, 375–438.Google Scholar

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(131) Orentlicher, Settling accounts, p. 377.

(132) ‘It is probably true that neither the generals who run Myanmar, nor President Suharto in Indonesia, nor the Communist Party in China, will be encouraged to move towards democracy by the fate of Messrs Chun and Roh. After all, Mr Roh ceded power as gracefully as any military man can. Now he has fallen victim to the process of democratisation that he helped to foster. The moral drawn by Asia's nervous dictators may well be that, when democrats are at the door, lock them up rather than usher them in’ (The quality of Korean mercy, The Economist August 31, 1996).

(133) For partly similar arguments against the deterrence effect argument, see also Nino, Radical Evil on Trial, 144–45.

(134) For this idea, see Nozick, R., Anarchy, State and Utopia (Oxford: Blackwell, 1974), p. 28.Google Scholar

(135) Nino, Radical Evil on Trial, p. 110.

(136) For an explicit contemporary reference to this interest, see Tamm, Retsopgøret efter Besœttelsen, p. 669.

(137) Paczolay, P., Judicial review of compensation law in Hungary, in Kritz, (ed.), Transitional Justice, vol. II, 667–685, at p. 671–72.Google Scholar

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(139) Nino, Radical Evil on Trial, p. 110.

(140) Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations, p. 153; Tamm, Retsopgøret efter Besœttelsen, p. 259.

(141) Huyse, and Dhondt, , La répression des collaborations, 31, 151–152.Google Scholar

(142) Ibid., 288, 181–82.

(143) On the distinction between the emotion of fear, and fear as a mere complex of desires and beliefs (as when we say we're afraid it's going to rain) see Gordon, R., The Structure of the Emotions (Cambridge University Press, 1987), p.77 and passim.Google Scholar

(144) Nino, Radical Evil on Trial, p. 141.

(145) For this tendency, see Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations and Andenæs, Det Vanskelige Oppgjøret, p. 182. The mechanism may be related to the tendency for money to suffer a temporary devaluation in the context of large purchases (Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D., The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice, Science 211 (1981), 553–558).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

(146) Tamm, Retsopgøret efter Besœttelsen, 452–53.

(147) Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations, p. 169.

(148) Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations, p. 170; Tamm, Retsopgøret efter Besœttelsen, p. 446. In Denmark, some of those who (i) received short sentences and (ii) were tried early actually served longer than those who had been sentenced to longer sentences (ibid., p. 449).

(149) Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations, p. 125, citing a statement in parliament from 1948.

(150) Ibid., p. 267.

(151) The following draws on Ch. I of Alchemies of the Mind, to which the reader is referred for a fuller discussion.

(152) For a more extensive discussion of these three aggregation mechanisms, see my editorial introduction to Deliberative Democracy, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press.

(153) As described by Huyse, and Dhondt, , La répression des collaborations, 80, 149–150Google Scholar, an interesting case arose in Belgium, where the first government of national unity (Van Acker I) was authorized by parliament to regulate transitional justice by decree-laws. The delegation law remained in force under the center-left government that followed (Van Acker II), which used it to pass important and potentially controversial laws without debates or votes in parliament.

(154) Tamm, Retsopgøret efter Besœttelsen, p. 446.

(155) Ibid., p. 666 ff. Tamm believes, however, that the deal was probably implicit and only later came to be represented as an explicit agreement.

(156) Pataki, J., Dealing with Hungarian Communists' Crimes, in Kritz, . (ed.), Transitional Justice, vol. II, 647–652, at p. 650.Google Scholar

(157) For this distinction, see Alchemies of the Mind, Ch. V. 3.

(158) Huyse and Dhondt, La répression des collaborations, p. 69.

(159) Lottman, L'épuration, p. 272.

(160) Nino, Radical Evil on Trial, p. 39.

(161) Elster, J., Political Psychology (Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

(162) See for instance Lerner, M. and Lerner, S. (eds), The Justice Motive in Social Behavior (New York: Plenum Press), aptly subtitled ‘Adapting to times of scarcity and change’.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

(163) I argue in Ch. V of Alchemies of the Mind that even when these conceptions of justice are rationalizations of other motivations, they can nevertheless have independent explanatory power, due to (i) the need for consistency and (ii) the need to avoid rationalizations that are too obviously a mere disguise for other motivations.