Taking Wrongs Seriously: Apologies and ReconciliationElazar Barkan, Alexander Karn Since the end of the Cold War, and particularly during the last fifteen years, the human need to amend immoral wrongs has been expressed in political discourse as a propensity to apologize for acts of past injustice. Can apology, by bringing closure to conflicts and by opening new possibilities for communication and mutual understanding, cultivate reconciliation and ameliorate the present? Taking Wrongs Seriously examines the increasingly potent role of apology as a social force. Contributors explore in a comparative and interdisciplinary framework the role and function--as well as the limitations--that apology has in promoting dialogue, tolerance, and cooperation between groups confronting one another over past injustices. Fourteen essays draw on a variety of disciplines--including history, international relations, transition studies, sociology, legal studies, psychology, and religion--to explore the real and symbolic transactions that lie at the core of apology. There is no similar introductory text on this subject that includes multiple disciplinary perspectives as well as such a wide geographical and historical spectrum of case studies. |
Contents
Apology Truth Commissions and Intrastate Conflict | 33 |
Punishment Reconciliation and Democratic Deliberation | 50 |
Reconciliation Between | 83 |
Copyright | |
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Taking Wrongs Seriously: Apologies and Reconciliation Elazar Barkan,Alexander Karn Limited preview - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
Aboriginal abuse accept acknowledge action acts African Americans Alex Boraine American amnesty apartheid argue Assistant Secretary Gover's atrocities Australian Bush Chirac collective committed concept conflict contemporary context courts crimes democratic Ethics forgiveness France French German global Gover's apology Greenwood guilt healing historical Historical clarification commissions Holocaust human rights identity Indian individual injustice institutions Islamic issues Jewish Le Monde leaders Lebanon linking object memory Monde moral apology mourning Native Native Americans negotiations official Oklahoma Ossetians past wrongs peace perpetrators political apology political culture President punishment reparations repentance responsibility restitution restorative justice retributive justice revenge Riot Commission ritual role Rumsfeld Rwanda sense shame slavery social society South African South Ossetians sulh survivors tion trauma trials truth commissions Tulsa Race Riot Tulsa Riot Tulsa World Tutu Tutu's ubuntu United University Press vengeance Vichy victims violations Volkan World York