Lustration and Transitional Justice

Lustration and Transitional Justice: Personnel Systems in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland

by Roman David

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press

A volume in the Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights series

328 pages | 6 x 9 | 11 illus. Cloth Sep 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4331-4 |

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.

Lustration is not analyzed here only as a regional instance of transitional justice but as a mirror of major (perpetrator-centered) transitional justice strategies. The book proposes a transformative theory of transitional justice that helps to explain the origin and the effects of transitional justice. It then empirically examines the effects of dismissal, exposure, and confession on trust in government, social reconciliation, and collective memory.

The use of survey experiments provides an opportunity to test the effects of transitional justice at the microlevel within three different macropolitical contexts. For instance, can confession contribute to reconciliation in a retributive society?

Winner of the Concept Analysis in Political Science Award (2012) by the Research Committee on Concepts and Methods of the International Political Science Association (IPSA).

REVIEWS OF THE BOOK:

Christopher K. Lamont, "Transitional Justice: Power, Symbols, and Political Science," International Journal of Transitional Justice, Vol. 7, 186-93 (2013).

Kieran Williams, "Lustration and Transitional Justice", Slavic Review, 689-90 (2012).

Helga Welsh, "Lustration and Transitional Justice," Choice, Vol. 49, No. 08 (April 2012).

Tim Haughton, "Battlefields, Ammunition, and Uniforms: The Past and Politics in Post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe", Comparative European Politics, Vol. 11, 249-40 (2013).

Andy Aitchison, "Book Review: Lustration and Transitional Justice," Social & Legal Studies 22:277-80 (2013).

Steven D. Roper, "Post-Transitional Justice by Collins" and "Lustration and Transitional Justice by David," Perspectives on Politics 11(2): 667-69 (2013).

TABLE OF CONTENT

Preface ix

List of Abbreviations xiii

Introduction 1 (AVAILABLE TO DOWNLOAD!)

Part I. Personnel Systems and Transitional Justice

Chapter 1. Personnel Systems and Their Classification 17

Chapter 2. The Symbolic Meaning of Personnel Systems 43

Part II. Lustration Systems in Central Europe

Chapter 3. Lustration Systems and Their Operation 65

Chapter 4. The Origin of Lustration Systems 93

Chapter 5. The Politics of Lustration Systems 131

Part III. Experimental Evidence

Chapter 6. Political Effects: Trust in Government 165

Chapter 7. Social Effects: Reconciliation and Collective Memory 194

Conclusion 225

Appendix A. The Dilemmas of Personnel Systems (AVAILABLE TO DOWNLOAD!)

Appendix B. The Experimental Vignette

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

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