We Are Not Like Us Transitional Justice: The (Re)construction of Post-communist Memory

JVF Conference Papers

The notion of transitional justice became fashionable following the recent fall of authoritarian regimes in East-Central Europe, Latin America, and the end of apartheid in South Africa. It denotes those procedures, legal or otherwise, which occur after regime change, civil war, or occupation, and addresses the question what to do with former elites, collaborators (e.g., agents of the secret services) and perpetrators of human rights violations. In emerging democracies, the issue became an integral part of public discourse and political debates, and the attempts of new democracies to prosecute, or in other ways punish, former political elites also generated a significant body of literature in political science, law, and human rights studies.

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