The Politics of Official Apologies

Häftad, Engelska, 2008

347 kr

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Beskrivning

Intense interest in past injustice lies at the centre of contemporary world politics. Most scholarly and public attention has focused on truth commissions, trials, lustration, and other related decisions, following political transitions. This book examines the political uses of official apologies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States. It explores why minority groups demand such apologies and why governments do or do not offer them. Nobles argues that apologies can help to alter the terms and meanings of national membership. Minority groups demand apologies in order to focus attention on historical injustices. Similarly, state actors support apologies for ideological and moral reasons, driven by their support of group rights, responsiveness to group demands, and belief that acknowledgment is due. Apologies, as employed by political actors, play an important, if underappreciated, role in bringing certain views about history and moral obligation to bear in public life.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2008-01-28
Mått:152 x 229 x 13 mm
Vikt:290 g
Format:Häftad
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:216
Förlag:Cambridge University Press
ISBN:9780521693851

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Mer om författaren

Melissa Nobles (BA in History, Brown University; Ph.D. in Political Science, Yale University) is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Nobles' teaching and research interests are in the comparative study of racial and ethnic politics and issues of retrospective justice. She is the author of Shades of Citizenship: Race and the Census in Modern Politics (2000), which received the 2001 Outstanding Book Award from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists, as well as honorable mention of the Ralph Bunche Book Award from the American Political Science Association. Nobles has been a Fellow at Boston University's Institute on Race and Social Division (2000–1) and Harvard University's Radcliffe Center for Advanced Study (2003–4).

Recensioner i media

'Melissa Nobles has written a subtle, nuanced book about a phenomenon that lends itself to extravagant moralising and rhetoric. Clear-headedly and insightfully, Nobles grasps apologies not as magic wands of reconciliation or cheap tokens of sentiment but as political resources for groups seeking broader political change. … The Politics of Official Apologies is an excellent book that stakes out important ground. … [It] is careful and nonpolemical; it does an excellent job of situating the phenomenon of apology in the wider field of redress politics; and it navigates admirably and sensitively through the specific details and histories of the relevant cases. Sophisticated and scholarly, but also suitable for course use with graduate students and senior undergraduates, it should be on the bookshelves of every researcher working on questions of historic injustice.' Journal of Politics

Innehållsförteckning

1. Toward a membership theory of apologies; 2. History of national memberships in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States; 3. To apologize or not to apologize: national histories and official apologies; 4. Beyond sentiment? Apologies and their effects; 5. The weight of history and the value of apologies.