Teaching transitional justice and memory politics

contents and experiences

Nordic-Baltic-Russian Network Transition Studies

Workshop Tartu, 4 May 2006

Eva-Clarita Onken

Basic assumptionsAny study of transition to democracy

has to include the question of how the democrati-zing state and society deal with the institu-tional, structural and personal legacies of the previous regime

It is a challenge to teach these issues on a comparative level, since memory and identity politics is fundamentally case related

Background First experience: course on politics

of memory within Prometheus Particular circumstances:

Students from different backgrounds Transitional countries, young and old

democracies (including the US) Different disciplines (including non-social

sciences) Different learning cultures and expectations

Limited time (7 sessions) and foreign language for most students

Course content History and memory Memory representation and power Transitional justice Impact of memory on policy and

political culture Specifics of the post-Communist

transition cases

History and memory History and historiography

What is history? What makes a fact of the past into a historical fact?

The role of the historian in society and vis á vis historical facts

Individual and collective (social) memory

How can we remember collectively? What and who determines collective memory?

Memory representation Question: How is collective memory

created and maintained? Monuments and Memorials

Examples! (War memorials/ Babij Yar) Commemoration days / celebrations

Examples! (VE day/ 9 May / 27 January) School textbooks

Compare history textbooks from different times

Museums, arts and films Examples! (Jewish Museum Berlin, Guernica,

Schindler‘s list)

Discussion:

Relationships between Memory and identity

individual, social and national identity Identity politics

Memory and political power actors, institutions and means A priori deplorable or sometimes to be

welcomed?

Transitional justice Question: Should young democracies

deal with the legacy of the previous regime (i.e. engage in truth and justice policies)? Pro: it builds trust in the accountability of

the new state, which is a crucial precondition for the establishment of democratic procedures and institutions (pluralism and the rule of law)

Con: it destabilizes the society and the system in a time when social stability is most crucial to establish new institutions, laws and policies.

Truth and justice policies Violent retribution Trials Purges (lustration) Amnestie (policy of forgetting) Truth-telling (commissions, inquiries) Rehabilitation / Compensation Property restribution Symbolic gestures of acknowledgement

through building monuments or declaring official commemoration days

Truth and justice policies Violent retribution Trials Purges (lustration) Amnestie (policy of forgetting) Truth-telling (commissions, inquiries) Rehabilitation / Compensation Property restribution Symbolic gestures of acknowledgement

through building monuments or declaring official commemoration days

What kind of transition? Result of the collapse of the old regimes or

regime forces Negotiated between a new democratic elite

and an the old regime‘s elite After foreign intervention giving total victory

to occupying forces After revolutionary or civil war leading to the

military defeat of dictatorial forces After regime collapse due to wearing down

of internal legitimacy and loss of control of key power or ideological resources

Countries of the Communist bloc?

Key variable Key to understanding various ways of

truth and justice policies is to look at the power relations between pro-reform groups emerging from the old regime, moderate opposition, and extreme groups on both sides, namely the authoritarian elite and radicals within the opposition.

Discussion: How significant are truth and justice

(accountability) policies for the process of democratization or/and “democratic deepening“? Destroying “bad social capital“ Social empowerment/ justice as recognition Laying ground for shared values and norms

When truth and justice? Who? Political leaders and elites, civil

society, intellectuals, individuals?

Outside influences

How much can international actors in-fluence domestic accountability proces-ses? (after defeat, through incentives)

Examples: Iraq/ CE/ post-War Germany

Measuring memory impact On policy decisions

IR and domestic politics On long term political culture

Concepts of history culture, historical consciousness and history politics

Memory regimes and public discourse competition

Good example: The case of Germany

historical: post-WWII transitional justice „Victor‘s justice“ and institutional continuities

50 years of Vergangenheitsbewältigung Impact of collective memory on policy decisions

and political culture (West – East) Post-Communist transition (“double past“)

Learning from experiences?

Post-Communist transitions

What are the particular challenges for truth and justice policies in various post-communist countries after 1990? Short intro to theories of totalitarianism

(political uses and developments – Linz, Arendt et al.)

What was socialism/communism “in practice“? (Verdery)

Post-Communist cases: Poland: Round table (pacted?) transition,

mode-rate, strong old elites, relatively strong civil so-ciety; competing policies of “thick line“ and lustration; outcome: successful establishment of democratic institutions and procedures, lack of trust and participation, new nationalist populism?

GDR: “swollowed“ transition; implementation of “foreign“ norms and values; policy of lustration and trials; public debates; outcome: successful institutional integration, „Ostalgia“ and identity crisis; right wing extremism?

( Comparing both with Czech Republic?)

Post-Communist cases: Latvia/Estonia: social movement/ sessession;

popular front / nationalists; legal restorationaism - politics of identity (nation-building, exclusion); new myths and ethnopolitics; outcome: successful establishment of democratic institutions and procedures, exclusion of parts of population via citizenship law, history along ethnic lines; divided society (two-community state)

Russia: Shock of breakdown, feeling of power loss; old elites, weak civil society; “Buried past“; myths about former glory; heroism; strength (politics of identity); outcome: weak divison of powers (centralization), non-democratic policies, control; re-inventing the past; ignoring the victims; new chauvinism?

Post-Communist cases Romania: revolutionary change, violent

retribution; weak opposition, re-establishment of old elites; outcome: weak institutions, corruption and lack of rule of law; half-hearted truth and justice policies; new history; slow transition.

Material and tasks Readings (secondary and primary) Pictures and films Writing and little research tasks

Pick a monument in your local town and discuss its history and meaning

Compare history textbooks for secondary school from before and after 1990 (textbook analysis)

What recent controversy about an historical event do you remember? Analyse and discuss how it emerged, who the contrahents were and what the actual issue was! (newspaper analysis)