Transitional Justice In Established Democracies

Truth commissions, official apologies and reparations are just some of the transitional justice mechanisms embraced by established democracies. This groundbreaking work of political theory explains how these forms of state redress repair the damage state wrongdoing inflicts upon political legitimacy.

Richly illustrated with real-life examples, the book's 'legitimating theory' explains the connections, and the conflicts, between the transitional practice of administrative, corrective and restorative justice. The book shows how political responses to state wrongdoing are part of a larger transitional history of the post-War 'rights revolution' in the settler democracies of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.

The result is an incisive theoretical exploration that not only explains the rectificatory work of established democracies but also provides new ways to think about the broader field of transitional justice. Review: Stephen Winter brings together transitional, redress, and liberal political theory in an illuminating approach to understanding state redress as a specifically political project of normative legitimation.

This smartly written and incisively argued book sets a new bar for transitional, reparative, and historical justice theory. It is a tour de force of synoptic analysis and close consideration of specific cases of official redress in stable democracies. Margaret Urban Walker, Donald J. Schuenke Chair in Philosophy, Philosophy Department, Marquette University, USA This remarkable book draws together theories of transitional justice, legitimacy and political authority to explain why redress for historical injustices in Australia, Canada, the United States and New Zealand counts as transitional justice.

Winter combines a description of how these states have dealt with historical injustices with a persuasive account of why wrongs of states require redress. Janna Thompson, Faculty of Humainities and Social Sciences, Latrobe University, Australia