Closing the Books: Transitional Justice in Historical Perspective

by Jon Elster

After a change of political system, notably a transition from an autocratic to a democratic, or at least constitutional, regime, a process of transitional justice emerges in which wrongdoers from the previous regime are judged responsible and victims are compensated. John Elster looks at examples and proposes a framework for explaining variations. In addition to the numerous transitions after 1945 in Western Europe and after 1989 in Eastern Europe, transitional justice has taken place in classical Greece, the English and French restorations, and, more recently, in Latin America and South Africa. John Elster looks at these examples in this history of transitional justice.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

312 pages, Paperback

First published September 6, 2004

About the author

Jon Elster ، born 22 February 1940, Oslo) is a Norwegian social and political theorist who has authored works in the philosophy of social science and rational choice theory. He is also a notable proponent of analytical Marxism, and a critic of neoclassical economics and public choice theory, largely on behavioral and psychological grounds.

In 2016, he was awarded the 22nd Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science for his contributions to political science.

Reviews

[Raziel · Rating 3 out of 5]

“By the time of Cleisthenes, the elites recognized mass ambitions as a new weapon to use against each other. As a result, politically ambitious elites actively sponsored democratizing reforms... Ironically, as the elites gained victories over their enemies by sponsoring democratic reforms, there were fewer and fewer institutions that they could control directly.” Josiah Ober. p. 16

“Remember this punishment is for the purpose of prevention and not for vengeance. An element in prevention is to secure in the person punished the conviction of guilt.” Henry Lewis Stimson. p. 276

“After we entered the war and as we expended our men and our wealth to stamp out these wrongs, it was the universal feeling of our people that out of this war should come unmistakable rules and workable machinery from which any who might contemplate another era of brigandage would know that they would be held personally responsible and would be personally punished.”, Robert Jackson (main American organizer and prosecutor of the Nuremberg trials), p. 277

“Those who are unable to defer gratification may find their life to be nasty, brutish, and short. Urgency, by contrast, is often compatible with prudence, and may even be required by it.” p. 295

“It may be hard, in a given case, to determine clearly whether we are dealing with urgency or with impatience.”, p. 296

“We expected justice, but we got the rule of law [Rechtsstaat] instead.” Bärbel Bohley (former East German dissident). p. 319

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

A veteran paper pusher, Elster is a veteran in gathering useless data and moving around the subject in circles.

[Aditya Adhikari · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book takes such a broad view of transitional justice that it is virtually useless. Page after page is filled with details from ancient Greece, 19th century France and post-war Germany. The accumulation of relentless detail and the lack of an overarching analytical framework numbs the reader's mind. Also, the author chooses to entirely ignore the role of international law and the international human rights movement in transitional justice. Given that these are determining factors in transitional justice as it has evolved over the past two decades, these omissions are inexplicable.