How do transitional democracies deal with officials who have been tainted by complicity with prior governments? Should they be excluded or should they be incorporated into the new system? In Lustration and Transitional Justice, Roman David examines major institutional innovations that developed in Central Europe following the collapse of communist regimes. While the Czech Republic approved a lustration (vetting) law based on the traditional method of dismissals, Hungary and Poland devised alternative models that granted their tainted officials a second chance in exchange for truth. David classifies personnel systems as exclusive, inclusive, and reconciliatory; they are based on dismissal, exposure, and confession, respectively, and they represent three major classes of transitional justice. David argues that in addition to their immediate purposes, personnel systems carry symbolic meanings that help explain their origin and shape their effects. In their effort to purify public life, personnel systems send different ideological messages that affect trust in government and the social standing of former adversaries. Exclusive systems may establish trust at the expense of reconciliation, while inclusive and reconciliatory systems may promote both trust and reconciliation. In spite of its importance, the topic of inherited personnel has received only limited attention in research on transitional justice and democratization. Lustration and Transitional Justice is the first attempt to fill this gap. Combining insights from cultural sociology and political psychology with the analysis of original experiments, historical surveys, parliamentary debates, and interviews, the book shows how perceptions of tainted personnel affected the origin of lustration systems and how dismissal, exposure, and confession affected trust in government, reconciliation, and collective memory.

In transitions from authoritarian regimes, justice has normally encompassed a variety of approaches, from amnesty to public trials. The oddity about the post-communist world is that transitional justice has been reduced to, by and large, the mechanism of lustration, which is the process of limiting the political participation of the former authoritarian elites. This widespread political arrangement raises three puzzles of regime transitions. Why do some post-communist countries lustrate, while others do not? Why do countries with similar authoritarian pasts implement different lustration mechanisms? What explains the timing of lustration? This dissertation argues that three factors--democracy, elite politics and the institutional environment--explain levels of lustration as measured by an original Lustration Index, covering thirty-four post-communist countries from 1990 to 2012. Statistical analyses, elite interviews and in-depth case studies of Russia and Georgia illustrate that inherited social capital and institutional constraints affect transitional justice in ways that account for lustration as an integral part of post-communist regime change. The findings of this study demonstrate that lustration is a tool by which the transitional elites rewrite the rules of the political process in order to gain and maintain political power.

In the first project of its kind to compare multiple mechanisms and combinations of mechanisms across regions, countries, and time, Transitional Justice in Balance: Comparing Processes, Weighing Efficacy systematically analyzes the claims made in the literature using a vast array of data, which the authors have assembled in the Transitional Justice Data Base.

This book explores the complicated relationship between constitutions and transitional justice. It brings together scholars and practitioners from different countries to analyze the indispensable role of constitutions and constitutional courts in the process of overcoming political injustice of the past. Issues raised in the book include the role of a new constitution for the successful practice of transitional justice after democratization, revolution or civil war, and the difficulties faced by the court while dealing with mass human rights infringements with limited legal tools. The work also examines whether constitutionalizing transitional justice is a better strategy for new democracies in response to political injustice from the past. It further addresses the complex issue of backslides of democracy and consequences of constitutionalizing transitional justice. The group of international authors address the interplay of the constitution/court and transitional justice in their native countries, along with theoretical underpinnings of the success or unfulfilled promises of transitional justice from a comparative perspective. The book will be a valuable resource for academics, researchers and policy-makers working in the areas of Transitional Justice, Comparative Constitutional Law, Human Rights Studies, International Criminal Law, Genocide Studies, Law and Politics, and Legal History.

What happens when the international community simultaneously pursues peace and justice in response to ongoing conflicts? What are the effects of interventions by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the wars in which the institution intervenes? Is holding perpetrators of mass atrocities accountable a help or hindrance to conflict resolution? This book offers an in-depth examination of the effects of interventions by the ICC on peace, justice and conflict processes. The 'peace versus justice' debate, wherein it is argued that the ICC has either positive or negative effects on 'peace', has spawned in response to the Court's propensity to intervene in conflicts as they still rage. This book is a response to, and a critical engagement with, this debate. Building on theoretical and analytical insights from the fields of conflict and peace studies, conflict resolution, and negotiation theory, the book develops a novel analytical framework to study the Court's effects on peace, justice, and conflict processes. This framework is applied to two cases: Libya and northern Uganda. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, the core of the book examines the empirical effects of the ICC on each case. The book also examines why the ICC has the effects that it does, delineating the relationship between the interests of states that refer situations to the Court and the ICC's institutional interests, arguing that the negotiation of these interests determines which side of a conflict the ICC targets and thus its effects on peace, justice, and conflict processes. While the effects of the ICC's interventions are ultimately and inevitably mixed, the book makes a unique contribution to the empirical record on ICC interventions and presents a novel and sophisticated means of studying, analyzing, and understanding the effects of the Court's interventions in Libya, northern Uganda - and beyond.

Transitional justice is the way societies that have experienced civil conflict or authoritarian rule and widespread violations of human rights deal with the experience. With its roots in law, transitional justice as an area of study crosses various fields in the social sciences. This book is written with this multi- and inter-disciplinary dynamic of the field in mind. The book presents the broad scope of transitional justice studies through a focus on the theory, mechanisms and debates in the area, covering such topics as: The origin, context and development of transitional justice Victims, victimology and transitional justice Prosecutions for abuses and gross violations of human rights Truth commissions Transitional justice and local justice Gender, political economy and transitional justice Apology, reconciliation and the politics of memory Offering a discussion of the impact and outcomes of transitional justice, this approach provides valuable insight for those who seek both an introduction alongside relatively advanced engagement with the subject. Transitional Justice: Theories, Mechanisms and Debates is an important text for postgraduate and advanced undergraduate students who take courses in transitional justice, human rights and criminal law, as well as a systematic reference text for researchers.

Taking stock of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the collapse of the communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe, this volume explores how these societies have grappled with the serious human rights violations of past regimes. It focuses on the most important factors that have shaped the nature, speed, and sequence of transitional justice programs in the period spanning the revolutions that brought about the collapse of the communist dictatorships and the consolidation of new democratic regimes. Contributors explain why leaders made certain choices, discuss the challenges they faced, and explore the role of under-studied actors and grassroots strategies. Written by recognized experts with an unparalleled grasp of the region's communist and post-communist reality, this volume addresses far-reaching reckoning, redress, and retribution policy choices. It is an engaging, carefully crafted volume, which covers a wide variety of cases and discusses key transitional justice theories using both qualitative and quantitative research methods.

This volume examines the conditions under which lustration and related transitional justice measures have affected political and social trust-building and democratization across twelve countries in Central and Eastern Europe and parts of the Former Soviet Union between 1989 and 2012.

Poland was the first East Central European nation to transfer from totalitarian rule to democracy. Although resistance to the communist regime existed since 1956, it was not until 1980 that this transition began to develop. Negotiations between Poland's communist regime and its opposition allowed for the first free elections in East Central Europe in the summer of 1989 and with in months, regimes throughout the region began to fall. Poland's neighbors, Germany and the Czech Republic, immediately adopted policies concerning the crimes of the previous regime upon their transfer but Poland did not. Poland's failure to implement legislation concerning transitional justice led to almost a decade of political turmoil and infighting. In order for an emerging democracy to become effective, it must separate itself from the ideals of the old regime and those individuals and policies that enforced its repression. This thesis will examine the post 1989 governments of Poland, Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic, and East Germany including how each of these nations held the criminal functionaries of the previous regime accountable, while the transition to a democratic state unfolded in turn in the 1990s. It will provide insight as to why Poland, after legislation in 1996, is still struggling with implementation of transitional justice eighteen years after transition.