Political Apologies Research Articles

When saying sorry is not enough: The paradox of a political apology offered to Irish mother and baby home survivors

AbstractWhile political apologies cannot undo what has been done, they are often perceived as highly relevant for healing and reconciliation. However, these apologies are often mired in controversy and highly political. While research on political apologies has focused on the role of intergroup relations, limited research has explored the intragroup dynamics involved. The present article explores how the paradoxical features of a political apology to ingroup members have their source in partisanship. The analysis used methods derived from discursive psychology. Using data from six parliamentary statements that were given in response to the political apology offered to Irish mother and baby home survivors, we demonstrated how these speakers constructed and understood the apology and how these constructions relate to their own political positions. Specifically, the apology to mothers and babies is used for political purpose, allowing majority members of government to position the wrongdoings experienced by mothers and babies in the past and to encourage the national collective to move on. Others seeking progressive social change—a parliamentary minority—use the apology to shape a political narrative that demands national collective action. Our work highlights the important role that identity‐based power relations play in confronting historical injustice, and how this may result in a dual schism with people within a nation becoming divided over both the apology and the appropriate response.

“The Sorriest Prime Minister”

In contemporary political discourse, political apologies have emerged as a critical linguistic tool allowing politicians to sway and manipulate public perception. Especially the act of historical apology has been on the rise. This article examines the apology strategies of Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, and how Trudeau modifies his apologies when apologizing for personal offenses versus historical transgressions. Drawing on politeness theory, the article suggests that Trudeau apologizes differently when apologizing for personal offenses than for historical transgressions. The article asserts that Trudeau’s personal apologies are marked by non-apology and face-saving strategies, whereas his historical apologies are more performative. This contrast underlines a strategic approach to apologizing, suggesting that Trudeau strategically leverages historical apologies to bolster his image as a progressive politician and minority ally. The article claims that, through these linguistic tactics, historical apologies, particularly historical apologies, serve as powerful means for shaping and perpetuating a desired political identity.

“I needed him to tell the world”: People’s evaluation of political apologies for human rights violations in El Salvador, the Republic of Korea, and the United Kingdom

Across the world, an increasing number of states or state representatives have offered apologies for human rights violations, particularly since the 1990s. There is debate, however, on how valuable such gestures are and what impact they have. To address this, we examined what the perspectives of victim community members and the general public are in this regard, in different parts of the world. We focused on the apologies for the El Mozote massacre in El Salvador, the Jeju 4.3 events in the Republic of Korea, and Bloody Sunday in the United Kingdom, whereby we conducted 127 in-depth interviews with members of victim communities and the general public in these countries. Using thematic analysis, we found across these three countries that participants from the victim group and the general public saw the apology as a meaningful event because it acknowledges the suffering of the victims and breaks the silence about past atrocities. This suggests that apologies may answer to a broadly shared need for recognition. Nevertheless, the apologies were also regarded as limited in terms of their overall role in reconciliation processes and the further changes that they generate. The article concludes by discussing this ambivalence, present in both the apology literature as among our participants’ responses across the world.

Political apologies and their acceptance: Experimental evidence from victims and perpetrators nations.

Political apologies have been argued to contribute to reconciliation among groups and nations but their efficacy has also been questioned. This paper examines the acceptance of political apologies, their content and the protagonists in the victim nation, the perpetrator nation and their subgroups. Guided by studies on the structure of apologies, it distinguishes 10 features of apologies, seven of which concern their content and three of their protagonists. Following the analysis of apology statements by Japan to South Korea, the paper further breaks these features (factors) down into 32 elements (levels). The acceptance of around 70,000 possible apology combinations is examined in a randomized conjoint experiment, which was embedded in online quota-based surveys in Japan (n = 2700) and South Korea (n = 3000). The analysis reveals that the content of apologies matters, protagonists matter more than content and some subgroups matter more than protagonists. The subgroup analysis showed that some within-country differences are larger than cross-country differences, which challenges the SIT. Apology statements that would be acceptable in both nations are summarised.

The Association between ideology and resistance to governmental apology depends on political knowledge

AbstractThis study examines the relationship between ideology and resistance to the government's apology to Asian victims of Japan's colonial rule policy, which varies according to political knowledge. Based on existing research, because only a limited percentage of voters consider politics to be ideology based, it is expected that the association between ideology and resistance to intergroup apologies by one's own government differs according to their level of political knowledge. We selected three issues of political apologies: colonial rule in Asian countries, comfort women, and the massacre of Korean people based on false rumors at the time of the 1923 Kanto Earthquake; thereafter, we conducted an online survey of a panel selected by Nikkei Research Inc. The results suggest that the relationship between ideology and resistance among voters to political apologies varies with the level of political knowledge, as expected. On the contrary, social dominance orientations (SDO) were associated with resistance to apology, regardless of their level of political knowledge. We then tested the reproducibility of this finding by conducting a follow-up test on registered users of a crowdsourcing service after conducting a preregistration. In addition, we also measured general attitudes toward personal apologies and neighboring countries victimized by Japan's colonialist policies as factors that might predict resistance to apologies even among the politically uninformed. The association between ideology, SDO, and resistance to governmental apologies was generally replicated in this study.

Apology mismatch: An experimental approach to Japan's apologies to Korea

Since 1965, Japan has issued numerous apologies to Korea, which however failed to resonate with the Korean public. To investigate this puzzle, this paper analyses the structure of these apologies and empirically examines their reception in Korea. Blatz et al.'s (Political Psychology, 2009, 30, 219) classification of components of political apologies was applied to conduct a qualitative analysis of 63 official apology statements by Japan to Korea and identify the most frequently used components (Study 1). Korean participants (N = 210) were randomly presented with an experimental vignette consisting of a major apology component to examine their psychological responses, and they also ranked the importance of each major apology component (Study 2). Results showed that while Koreans viewed admission of wrongdoing as an essential and the most demanded component of apology, it was paradoxically the least frequent component offered by Japan in reality.

An Inventory and Index for Political Apologies

AbstractThis paper builds on previous research to provide a Political Apology Inventory and also a Political Apology Index to measure political apologies across various elements. This inventory and index are meant to assist those offering apologies as well as those receiving and evaluating meanings provided by specific political apologies.

Emotional and Gendered Sense-Making through Apologies for Conflict-Related Sexual Violence

Abstract This article examines the specific, gendered discourses, which can be uncovered within political apologies for conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) and sexualized torture. While apologies are often perceived as either cynical, normatively “empty” gestures that seek to carry out strategic interests or as attempts by political actors to (albeit, often inadequately) emphasize their commitment to addressing past violence and associated cultures of impunity, a feminist analysis of two cases of apology for CRSV (the Japanese imperial “comfort women” and the United States’ infamous Abu Ghraib torture “scandal”) demonstrates that political apologies are rich affective–discursive, deliberately emotional sites at which CRSV is explained and/or accounted for by the state. Specifically, I trace how political apologies operate to discursively and affectively claim and renounce institutional responsibility for CRSV through the common-sense but “slippery” gendered logics of rational/emotional and public/private.

Political Apologies for Historical Injustices: Engaging with Questions of Power, Utility, and Impact

Abstract The purpose of the special forum is to analyze political apologies through a variety of critical lenses in order to evaluate their efficacy for conflict mediation and redress of historical injustice. The proliferation of group apologies in the 1990s and 2000s led some scholars to herald the arrival of an “age of apology.” However, the task of assessing the impacts of these apologies and gauging their potential for fostering reconciliation has remained unfinished. The scholarship has been characterized by alternating currents of idealism and realism, but much of the work has been intuitive rather than empirical, and there is little agreement as to the evaluative criteria. With these papers, we take stock of what has been learned about political apologies, and we seek new avenues for exploration. Critics are right to question the unequal power structures that apologies sometimes reinforce, and it is important to understand how apologies leave crucial aspects of injustice untouched. At the same time, the prevalence of apologies in international affairs and the propensity of both perpetrators and victims to seek acknowledgment through the discourse of apologies suggest that continued study of apologies is warranted. Probing the performative aspects of apologies and dissecting their contradictions does not foreclose the possibility of their also having value for improving intergroup relationships, deepening historical understanding, and enacting justice, for example, by strengthening demands for reparations. Nor should we abandon efforts to understand what moral substance these apologies may convey, simply because we have seen how they can be cynically manipulated.

Separate National Apologies, Transnational Injustices: Second World War Oppression, Anti-Japanese Persecution, and the Politics of Apology in Five Countries

AbstractDuring the Second World War, several Allied countries oppressed Japanese diaspora groups (also known as Nikkei). The United States and Canada apologized in 1988; today, Brazil and Mexico face reparative demands for their persecution of Nikkei communities. There has been no integrated analysis of these interconnected injustices. This article offers a preliminary account, highlighting some of the key transnational factors involved. It also addresses the significant domestic bias of public discussions about the injustices, a bias that ignores the historical centrality of transnational forces in historical processes of anti-Asian oppression. We ask whether the possible spread of apology politics from the US and Canadian cases to Brazil, Mexico, and Australia might help to promote a new political awareness of the transnational character of the wartime oppression of Nikkei civilians in Allied countries. However, our analysis reveals that the politics of apology tends to promote domestic bias in public understandings of anti-Japanese racism. Indeed, to the extent that transnationality emerged in our cases, it was in the perverse form of “White civility” comparisons that chided countries in the Global South to emulate their allegedly more advanced apologetic counterparts from the North. Yet, there remain compelling reasons for domestic political apologies in our cases. The point is not to proscribe apologies but rather to understand their biases and, in the cases at hand, to use the spread of apology debates in our cases to promote a more widespread understanding of transnationality in the production of anti-Asian racism and White supremacy.

Meaningless gestures or pathway to healing and reconciliation? Comparing the perspectives on political apologies in victim and non-victim communities in El Salvador, the Republic of Korea and the United Kingdom.

Political apologies have been theorized to play an important role in healing and reconciliation processes in post-conflict settings. Whether they actually fulfil this function, however, remains unclear as the voices and perspectives of victim communities have largely been underrepresented in research. To address this, we examined the role of apologies that were offered for the El Mozote massacre (El Salvador), the Jeju 4.3 massacres (Republic of Korea) and Bloody Sunday (United Kingdom), according to members of these communities and the broader public. Although we anticipated that victim community members should find the apology more valuable and meaningful and should, therefore, be more positive about its role in healing and reconciliation processes, we found that this varies across countries. This variation could be explained by people's trust in the country's institutions. Across the samples, we found that the apology was seen as a relatively important gesture. For the apology to be perceived as impactful, however, it had to be seen as a meaningful (i.e. sincere) gesture. Our findings suggest that apologies have a role to play in the aftermath of human rights violations, but that it is essential to take the broader context into account.

“Sorry for what we did”: A Social Psychological Understanding of Political and Intergroup Apologies (Introduction to the Special Issue)

Research on political apologies spans sociopolitical contexts and disciplines and methodological frameworks. In the rise of interest in political apologies, especially in light of ‘the age of apologies’, social psychologists strive to understand mechanisms of issuing, perception and evaluation of political apologies from many perspectives. This special issue aims to highlight the important role of social psychological theory in understanding political apologies and deepening knowledge in this field. The papers, which comprise the special issue, offer a detailed and comprehensive study of political apology, including both theoretical and methodological lens to enrich understanding of the topic. Concluding, all the papers of this special issue can be of interest in academics and researchers, as well as policy-makers and other stakeholders beyond academia.

Can Ingroup Opposition to Political Apologies Be Mitigated? Negative Evidence for Dissociation from the Past and Praise for the Present System

Can Ingroup Opposition to Political Apologies Be Mitigated? Negative Evidence for Dissociation from the Past and Praise for the Present System

The gendered politics of recognition and recognizability through political apology

This article focuses on the performative recognition offered to victims through political apologies for conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV). It engages with understandings of political apology as an act of acknowledgment and moral visibility that has the capacity to further include marginalized accounts of violence or injustice within exclusive national histories/memberships. I introduce feminist understandings of visibility as ambivalent alongside a differential politics of “grievability” in order to suggest that political apologies must always recognize and make visible particular accounts of violence and subject positions; however, they simultaneously obscure others. I problematize the gendered and gendering effects of this process in relation to two cases of apology for CRSV: the Japanese imperial “comfort women” and the US Abu Ghraib torture scandal during the Global War on Terror (GWoT).

Introduction to a symposium on political apologies

World history has long confirmed Thucydides’ observation that “the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must.” Yet, starting more than a quarter century ago, the “strong” began to...

Closing chapters of the past? Rhetorical strategies in political apologies for human rights violations across the world

Over the past decades, an increasing number of countries have apologized for human rights violations in the recent or distant past. Although this has led to considerable debate about the value and meaning of apologies and their potential as a transformative mechanism, little is known about how countries across the world try to address and redress past wrongdoings in these statements. Relying on a database of apologies that have been offered worldwide by states or state representatives for human rights violations, we identified various rhetorical strategies that diverse countries use—to varying degrees—to (1) break from or acknowledge past wrongdoings, (2) bridge past wrongdoings with future intentions, and (3) bond with the intended recipients of the apology. In this article, we shed light on the strategies we identified in this regard. In doing so, we show how countries and their representatives use apologies not only or necessarily to address the needs of victims or their relatives, but also to portray and understand themselves, whereby there is substantial overlap in the types of rhetorical strategies and scripts that they use to accomplish this.

Examining the ‘age of apology’: Insights from the Political Apology database

It is often assumed that we are currently living in an ‘age of apology’, whereby countries increasingly seek to redress human rights violations by offering apologies. Although much has been written about why this may occur, the phenomenon itself has never been examined through a large-scale review of the apologies that have been offered. To fill this gap, we created a database of political apologies that have been offered for human rights violations across the world. We found 329 political apologies offered by 74 countries, and cross-nationally mapped and compared these apologies. Our data reveal that apologies have increasingly been offered since the end of the Cold War, and that this trend has accelerated in the last 20 years. They have been offered across the globe, be it that they seem to have been embraced by consolidated liberal democracies and by countries transitioning to liberal democracies in particular. Most apologies have been offered for human rights violations that were related to or took place in the context of a (civil) war, but there appears to be some selectivity as to the specific human rights violations that countries actually mention in the apologies. On average, it takes more than a generation before political apologies are offered.

To Apologize or to Compensate for Colonial Injustices? The Role of Representations of the Colonial Past, Group-Based Guilt, and In-Group Identification

In the aftermath of an intergroup conflict, along with instrumental reparations, victims may request an apology on behalf of the perpetrators, yet such political apologies are often not given. Whereas we know a lot about the motivations of the victims, less is known about when and why the perpetrators are willing to apologize. In this study, from the perspective of the perpetrator group, we simultaneously examined and compared support for a political apology and for instrumental reparations (e.g., financial support and other forms of assistance) offered to both former colonies and colonial-origin minorities living in the country responsible for the past colonization. We considered the indirect role of positive and negative representations of the colonial past via feelings of group-based guilt. Using a community sample of the native Dutch population (N = 763), we showed that the Dutch were more supportive of instrumental reparations than of political apology. They also agreed with both the positive and negative aspects of their colonial past, but they did not experience much collective guilt. Agreement with positive representations of the Dutch colonial past was, via weaker feelings of group-based guilt, related to less support for both political apology and instrumental reparations. In contrast, negative representations of the past were, via higher guilt, related to more support for these reconciliatory outcomes. These processes were similar for higher and lower in-group identifiers. Importantly, the association between guilt and support for political apology was twice as large as the one between guilt and support for instrumental reparations, suggesting that political apology is more effective in restoring the in-group’s moral self-image.

Resistance to the six elements of political apologies: Who opposes which elements?

Resistance to the six elements of political apologies: Who opposes which elements?

These Are Not Just Words: A Cross-National Comparative Study of the Content of Political Apologies

Countries around the world increasingly try to redress past human rights violations by offering apologies. The debates surrounding many of these political apologies suggest they do not necessarily satisfy victims’ needs. Little is known, however, about the actual content of these apologies and the extent to which they include the elements that are often seen as essential to healing processes. In this exploratory study, we conducted a cross-national comparative analysis of the texts of political apologies (<em>N</em> = 203, offered by 50 countries) and coded whether they included a statement of sorry, apology, or regret (IFID), and an acknowledgement of wrongdoing, acceptance of responsibility, promise of non-repetition, promise of reparations, recognition of victim suffering, victim re-inclusion, victim praise, or a recognition of moral values/norms. We found that the majority of political apologies only include a selection of these elements, with some countries offering more comprehensive apologies than others. Most apologies, however, do contain an IFID, an acknowledgment of wrongdoing and a recognition of suffering, although there is variation in how this is expressed. This variation can be linked to the receiving group (i.e., within-country or not), the contentiousness of the apology in a country and – albeit weakly – the cultural context. Based on these findings, we suggest that when considering the impact of political apologies, it is crucial to consider quantity (how many apology components are included) as well as quality (how this is done).