Post-Communist Transitional Justice
Lessons from Twenty-Five Years of Experience

Explores how the former communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe have grappled with the serious human rights violations of past regimes.

Lavinia Stan (Edited by), Nadya Nedelsky (Edited by)

9781107065567, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 26 February 2015

358 pages, 18 b/w illus. 6 tables
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.4 cm, 0.64 kg

'I believe that Stan and Nedelsky's ambitious and systematic book is bound to become a work of reference for scholars of transitional justice and area studies, and for political theorists alike. Since the volume forwards the understanding of transitional justice in several different ways, it is also not difficult to see it included in reading lists for advanced seminars or lectures in transitional justice or political theory.' Liviu Damsa, Europe-Asia Studies

Taking stock of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the collapse of the communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe, this volume explores how these societies have grappled with the serious human rights violations of past regimes. It focuses on the most important factors that have shaped the nature, speed, and sequence of transitional justice programs in the period spanning the revolutions that brought about the collapse of the communist dictatorships and the consolidation of new democratic regimes. Contributors explain why leaders made certain choices, discuss the challenges they faced, and explore the role of under-studied actors and grassroots strategies. Written by recognized experts with an unparalleled grasp of the region's communist and post-communist reality, this volume addresses far-reaching reckoning, redress, and retribution policy choices. It is an engaging, carefully crafted volume, which covers a wide variety of cases and discusses key transitional justice theories using both qualitative and quantitative research methods.

Part I. Determinants of Transitional Justice: 1. Transitional justice and political goods Brian Grodsky
2. Transitional justice as electoral politics Robert Austin
3. Explaining late lustration programs: lessons from the Polish case Aleks Szczerbiak
Part II. The Impact of Transitional Justice: 4. The adoption and impact of transitional justice Moira Lynch and Bridget Marchesi
5. Transitional justice effects in the Czech Republic Roman David
Part III. Key Challenges: 6. The timing of transitional justice measures Cynthia M. Horne
7. The challenge of competing pasts Monica Ciobanu
8. Beyond the national: pathways of diffusion Helga A. Welsh
9. The mythologizing of communist violence Jelena Subotic
Part IV. History, Justice, and Public Memory: 10. Post-communist truth commissions: between transitional justice and the politics of history Andrew Beattie
11. Public memory, commemoration, and transitional justice: reconfiguring the past in public space Duncan Light and Craig Young
12. Stories we tell: documentary theater, performance, and justice in transition Olivera Simic
13. Vigilante justice and unofficial truth projects Lavinia Stan.

Subject Areas: Public international law [LBB], Law [L]