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Transitional Justice and Changing
Memories of the Past in Central Europe
Roman David
Government and Opposition / Volume 50 / Issue 01 / January 2015, pp 24 - 44
DOI: 10.1017/gov.2013.37, Published online: 19 September 2013
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/
abstract_S0017257X13000377
How to cite this article:
Roman David (2015). Transitional Justice and Changing Memories of the
Past in Central Europe. Government and Opposition, 50, pp 24-44
doi:10.1017/gov.2013.37
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Government and Opposition, Vol. 50, No. 1, pp. 24–44, 2015
doi:10.1017/gov.2013.37
First published online 19 September 2013
Roman David*
Transitional Justice and Changing
Memories of the Past in Central Europe
Memories of wrongdoings are often viewed as an obstacle to reconciliation in
divided societies. Is it due to the past or the present politics of the past? To
examine the dilemma of essentialism versus presentism, this article investigates
the impact of transitional justice on memories of wrongdoing. It theorizes that
using different transitional justice strategies to deal with the same wrongdoing
shapes memories in different ways. The theory is tested via vignette-based surveys
in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, which adopted distinct lustration
laws. The results show that wrongdoing is viewed through lustration laws,
reﬂecting present power constellations, not history.
OWING TO ITS SOCIAL RELEVANCE FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF PEACE
and stable democracies, the topic of collective memory has attracted
the attention of political scientists, sociologists and historians (see,
for example, Booth 2001; de Brito et al. 2001; Connerton 1989;
Gibson 2004; Olick 2007; Rose 2009; Schwartz 1991, 1996; Winter
2006). Scholars of collective memories have long been preoccupied
with the question of how far our memories are functions of the past
and how far they are affected by the present. Two major schools of
thought have emerged, emphasizing fundamentally different
aspects in theorizing the origin of collective memories: presentism
and essentialism (see Olick 2007: 7–8; Schwartz 1991: 221–2; also
Aguilar 2002: 14–15). Presentism views collective memory as a
function of present factors, political interests and social conditions.1
In contrast, essentialism views collective memory as a fundamental
matter of the past (see, for example, Schudson 1992).
In order to shed light on this major debate, this article examines
the role of transitional justice in shaping the collective memory of
the previous regimes. Does transitional justice alter the memory
of the past? Transitional justice is uniquely positioned to illuminate
* Roman David is a Professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at
Lingnan University, Hong Kong. Contact email: roman.328@gmail.com.
Jc The Author 2013. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
the dilemma about the origin of collective memory. Transitional
justice can be deﬁned as a set of measures devised by transitional
countries to deal with the past (see Kritz 1995; Stan and Nedelsky
2013; Teitel 2000). It provides us with an excellent opportunity to
examine whether views of wrongdoing are determined by the
wrongdoing itself or whether these views are redeﬁned by policies
that have been designed to deal with it.
To investigate the role of transitional justice, this article examines
its subset, which consists of lustration laws (see Letki 2002;
Szczerbiak 2002; Williams et al. 2005). Lustration law can be deﬁned
as ‘a special public employment law that regulates the access of
members of the former repressive apparatus to public positions in
the new democracy’ (David 2006: 350). This article conceptualizes
collective memory as a process that captures present attitudes to past
wrongdoing. Since transitional justice predominantly concerns the
attribution of, or impunity from, responsibility for the past, this article
only operationalizes a subset of collective memory that concerns
individual responsibility and a moral judgment on the past. We shall
look for evidence that would enable us to link the pertinent aspect of
collective memory to transitional lustration laws or to historical
conditions, ﬁnding support for either presentism or essentialism.
Our approach to collective memory may be considered narrow
and reductionist, but we believe that the beneﬁts of the trade-off
outweigh its costs. First, our approach allows us to study empirically
the topic of collective memory, which is under-researched owing to
existing conceptualizations that are often too broad. With a measure
of agnosticism, Olick (2007: 23–33), for instance, relegates the
use of social surveys on collective memory into the snapshots of
a ‘collected memory’. Second, our approach provides us with an
opportunity to depart from the line of empirical research that draws
on psychological conceptions of memory as a process of retrieving
information about the past (Hirst et al. 2009). We are not interested
in giving quizzes to determine the accuracy of an historical event –
for example, to discover people’s recall of which of the Twin Towers
fell ﬁrst. We are interested in observing the evolution of the social
meaning of historical transgressions and of views about historical
transgressors. Any changes observed in these aspects would shed
light on the dilemma of presentism versus essentialism.
The article focuses on the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland,
which adopted three archetypal lustration systems (David 2006: 350).
25TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE AND CHANGING MEMORIES OF THE PAST
Jc The Author 2013. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
In order to examine empirically the impact of transitional justice on
the two aspects of collective memory, we devised a vignette-based
questionnaire2
that simulated a wrongdoing in the past, examined
whether any differences existed between people in the three
countries and discussed the empirical outcomes in light of historical
differences in the three countries. Thanks to the generous support
of the United States Institute of Peace, the experiment was
embedded in nationwide surveys in the Czech Republic, Hungary
and Poland in 2007.
TRANSITIONAL LAW AND MEMORIES OF THE PAST
According to the proponents of presentism, the past is a function of
present factors, conditions and interests (Halbwachs 1992). The
interplay of political interests in shaping collective memory has been
evident in numerous instances of memory entrepreneurship (Jelin
2003: 33) by manipulative leaders (see Kaufman 2001: 5–7). The
resurrection of the nationalism of Great Serbia, which invoked the
symbolic defeat at the Kosovo Field in 1389 in order to justify
territorial ambitions seven centuries later, is a prominent example.
In less tragic – though similarly telling – examples, revisiting the
period spanning the Civil War and First World War has democratized
George Washington in the US, and the historical context of the
Second World War has reinvented the leadership of Abraham
Lincoln (see Schwartz 1991, 1996).
In the essentialist viewpoint, memory is a function of the past, or
at least, according to its moderate stream, the past tends to resist
present conditions (see, for example, Schudson 1992). The past is
seen as a determining factor of collective memory in situations when
it becomes embedded in social structures (see, for example, Olick
2007: 7). Examples of such structures may be generations whose
memories are shaped in their formative years (Mannheim 1952:
297); social hierarchies and ranks which have been formed in
response, or negation, to hierarchies that existed in anciens re´gimes;
commemorative rituals (Connerton 1989) and social identity
(cf. Burke 2004) that may be derived from an opposition to historical
transgressors, such as the national identities of Baltic states, Israel
and South Korea (see Buruma 1994). Such social structures then
function as carriers of collective memories.
26 GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION
Jc The Author 2013. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
Although the literature offers two fundamentally different schools of
thought, one can imagine that past and present explanations of
memory may coexist, although their inﬂuence may vary.3
For instance,
the inﬂuence of present factors may increase as a result of changes in
social structure as time progresses. If generations are carriers of social
memory, as assumed by essentialists, then generational changes may
result in changes in collective memory (Schuman and Scott 1989).
Olick (1999) has therefore introduced a third perspective, claiming
that collective memory may be a function of the past, the present and
commemorative processes in between.
Analysing the impact of legal measures, especially those under
the umbrella of transitional justice, may serve as an important
indicator that would allow us to test whether a particular narrative of
the past stems from the past or whether it is a result of subsequent
events: a changing dynamic of political power, parliamentary
negotiations and other present factors that are projected into the
laws. According to Markovits (2001), transitional laws affect what we
remember and forget about the past. Each decision-maker tends to
‘push for that version of the past which best advances his interests in
the present’ (Markovits 2001: 513). Thus, the main reason for
looking at transitional justice is that, owing to its primary purpose of
dealing with the past, transitional justice is intertwined with the
memory of the past (de Brito 2010; de Brito et al. 2001; Gibson
2004). It allows us to examine whether collective memory is a
function of the past or a function of transitional justice.
A number of scholars have studied the origin of transitional
justice extensively and acknowledged that political decisions on
transitional justice can be attributed to a variety of factors. For
instance, scholars attribute the choice of transitional justice to the level
of repression in the past and the ideological rigidity of the previous
regime (Moran 1994; Nedelsky 2004; Stan 2009); the balance of power
in transition (Huntington 1991); the politics of the present (Szczerbiak
2002) and the interplay of heterogeneous factors (Welsh 1996). The
variety of factors in play indicates, at the outset, that transitional laws
are far from being path-dependent projections of the past. The very
notion of the choice between transitional justice methods suggests that
there is at best only a limited role for the past in affecting that choice.
It has been widely acknowledged that all political and legal
processes convey particular ideological messages to the rest of
society (Wuthnow 1987: 14). In addition to their instrumental
27TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE AND CHANGING MEMORIES OF THE PAST
Jc The Author 2013. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
purpose, they carry intangible dimensions through which they
express particular symbolic meanings. Although these insights
originate in cultural sociology, political science as well as law has
long assumed the existence of social dynamics formulated in these
theories (Edelman 1964; Kertzer 1988). For instance, the deterrence
theory of punishment is not primarily concerned with the tangible
hardship imposed on the offender but with a message of threat to
all would-be offenders in society. Although different policies or
sanctions have different expressive powers, they all send particular
signals to society (Kahan 1996).
The operation of the social mechanism that underpins symbolic
politics can also be illustrated in non-transitional justice settings.
Guilty verdicts and the variation in the length of imprisonment
essentially affect not only offenders but the whole of society. In
addition to the already-mentioned deterrent effect, punishment is
an assessment of the wrongdoers’ behaviours and attributions of
their responsibility, which are both communicated to society. Let us
consider a small thought experiment. For instance, what does the
length of sentence (a matter of the present) tell us about
wrongdoing (a matter of the past)? We can reasonably expect that
the harsher the penalty is, the stronger the message about the gravity
of wrongdoing and about a wrongdoer’s individual responsibility.
We can also expect that two different judgments for essentially the
same wrongdoings may convey different messages about the gravity
of each of the two wrongdoings and wrongdoers’ responsibilities.
Since transitional justice measures can also be viewed as symbolic
communications through which the present assesses the wrongdoing
committed in the past, different strategies of transitional justice may
convey different ideological messages about the same past.
TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE STRATEGIES
The question of transitional justice strategies raises the problem of
effective classiﬁcation of transitional justice measures. Strategies of
transitional justice have been conveniently classiﬁed along the lines
of areas of law. Scholars typically distinguish constitutional justice,
reparatory justice, criminal justice and administrative justice (see
Teitel 2000). However, legal scholarship has only a limited explanatory
value in social science. It explains the loci of transitional justice
28 GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION
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strategies within the legal order without paying attention to the
variation within each level and similarities between different levels.
The legal discourse would lead us to think that constitutional law,
which is the highest in the hierarchy of legal order, conveys a stronger
message of condemnation than criminal law. In society, however,
it matters little whether – for instance – impunity originates in
constitutional or criminal law. It is the impunity that matters.
For this reason, we distinguish three perpetrator-centred strategies
that arise from a question of ‘what should be done about the guilty’
(Neier 1990): retribution, revelation and reconciliation (David 2011).
Retribution includes various measures that impose sanctions against
transgressors, including criminal trials, dismissals, banning a political
party, conﬁscation of property, pensions, and so on. Revelation
includes a variety of shaming penalties that expose transgressors, such
as truth-telling at truth commissions, opening of secret archives and
exposure through the lustration process. Reconciliation includes all
those measures in which the transgressor admits responsibility, such as
apologies, afﬁdavits and confessions in the amnesty committee of the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa.
The adoption of any of the strategies renders a particular
assessment of: (1) the individual responsibility of transgressors; and
(2) their condemnation.
(1) The message of retributive justice is that an individual acted as a
moral agent, was fully responsible for his or her action and was
punished accordingly. We hypothesize that retributive strategy
expresses: (a) individual responsibility and (b) condemnation
of the transgressor.
(2) On the other hand, revelation postulates a structural responsibility
because the exposed individuals ‘blame the system’ and
‘make excuses’ (Stinchcombe 1995). Such signals are ampliﬁed
when the exposure is pursued as a method of establishing the
transparency of the system instead of a naming-and-shaming
process. The absence of dismissal further strengthens the
impression that the individuals should not be punished since
they are victims of the system (David 2006). They are not
responsible for their actions, similar to how a contract drawn up
under duress is invalid. We therefore hypothesize that revelation
signiﬁes: (a) lack of individual responsibility; and (b) lack of
condemnation of the transgressor.
29TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE AND CHANGING MEMORIES OF THE PAST
Jc The Author 2013. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
(3) Reconciliation takes something from both strategies. It postulates
individual responsibility: it is the wrongdoer who confesses
and/or apologizes, acting as a moral agent. In doing so, he or
she tries to dissociate himself or herself from the wrongdoing
and to appear capable of moral development (see David 2011;
Govier 2002; Murphy and Hampton 1988). Consequently, we
hypothesize that reconciliation signiﬁes: (a) individual responsibility;
and (b) lack of condemnation.
Table 1 summarizes our three hypotheses.
LUSTRATION LAWS IN CENTRAL EUROPE
In order to deal with administrative and security personnel in the
state apparatuses inherited from previous regimes, several countries
in Central and Eastern Europe adopted so-called ‘lustration laws’
(see, for example, Letki 2002; Szczerbiak 2002). Deﬁned as
transitional public employment laws, these laws were very controversial
in their design and implementation (see David 2006: 348,
n. 5). While most scholars focused on the origin of lustration laws4
and their context in the socioeconomic transformation (Eyal 2000;
Eyal et al. 1998), their effects have also been debated (see, for
example, Choi and David 2012; Horne and Levi 2004; Letki 2002).
In focusing on strategies of transitional justice, we are only interested
in the method on which the laws were based. We examine lustration
systems rather than lustration laws per se, which would include
an inquiry into their logic and essence, rather than inquiries into the
nuances of their scope and procedures (David 2006: 351, 2011).
The theoretical signiﬁcance of lustration laws rests in their heterogeneity.
Lustration laws approved in Central and Eastern Europe
can be classiﬁed along the three different strategies of transitional
justice outlined above. We shall only focus on the archetypal
strategies adopted in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.
Table 1
Hypothesized Effects of Transitional Justice Strategies
Retribution Revelation Reconciliation
Individual responsibility Yes No Yes
Condemnation Yes No No
30 GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION
Jc The Author 2013. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
The Czech lustration law was an example of retribution; the
Hungarian lustration law was an example of revelation; and Poland’s
lustration law serves as an instance of a reconciliatory strategy.
Together, they stand not as an instance of transitional justice but as
its subset, reﬂecting the variation of perpetrator-centred strategies.
The ﬁrst lustration law was approved in Czechoslovakia in 1991
(see, for example, David 2003; Priban 2007). The law effectively
provided for dismissal, or demotion, of all persons in prescribed
capacities who worked or were associated with the repressive
apparatus of the socialist regime. Applicants for speciﬁed leading
posts in the state sector were obliged to submit a lustration
certiﬁcate issued by the Ministry of the Interior, which screened
the background of the applicant. Positive lustration – a ﬁnding of
collaboration – or negative lustration were the only possible
outcomes. This black-or-white vision did not provide space to
accommodate any mitigating circumstances, and thus categorically
postulated individual responsibility for the past. In contrast to
Hungarian and Polish models of lustration, dismissal signiﬁed the
greater gravity of the past wrongdoing.
Hungary approved its lustration law in 1994 (see, for example,
Barrett et al. 2007; Oltay 1994).5
In contrast to the retributive nature
of the Czech lustration law, the Hungarian lustration law was based
on the revelation of the public ofﬁcial’s link with the repressive
apparatus – that is, the secret police. The law could thus contribute
to a greater transparency of public life. Public ofﬁcials were screened
by committees of three judges and, if evidence of collaboration was
found, the ofﬁcial could resign without being exposed or could
retain his or her post in exchange for his or her exposure. By
legislating exposure, the lawmaker acknowledged the prominent
role of repressive structures in initiating collaboration rather than
the individual choice of the collaborator. It signalled that the
wrongdoing was not a serious offence that would warrant a dismissal.
After a number of failed attempts, followed by protracted
negotiations, Poland approved its lustration law in 1997 and
implemented it between 1999 and 2006 (see, for example, Czarnota
2007; David 2011). The law was not only fundamentally different
from the Czech model, it also turned the Hungarian model upside
down. Instead of entrusting the truth revelation to a state body, the
Polish lustration was based on the self-revelation or self-exposure of
public ofﬁcials. All holders or applicants for speciﬁed positions had
31TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE AND CHANGING MEMORIES OF THE PAST
Jc The Author 2013. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
to submit afﬁdavits that detailed their involvement in the previous
regime. These afﬁdavits were then veriﬁed and, if found true, the
ofﬁcial could hold a position of trust even if he or she had
collaborated with the proscribed sections of the repressive apparatus.
He or she would be dismissed only in cases of dishonesty.
Clearly, the individual was constructed as a moral agent, and in this
sense the Polish system resembles the retributive system in the Czech
Republic. However, similar to Hungary, the absence of dismissal
signiﬁes that collaboration was not seen as a serious problem that
would deserve dismissal. Moreover, the afﬁdavits can be viewed as
loyalty tests; once the persons demonstrated that they were willing to
play by the rules of the new system, their condemnation becomes
redundant because they represent themselves as reformed persons.
To sum up, each of the three Central European countries
attached different consequences to the act of collaboration with the
past regime. This provides us with an opportunity to examine
whether individual responsibility and demands for condemnation
can be attributed to the past collaboration or to the present
methods of dealing with collaboration.
RESEARCH METHOD
In order to test our hypotheses effectively, we have devised a
vignette-based questionnaire. Respondents in the three countries
heard the same story of a wrongdoing that occurred in all socialist
regimes. The wrongdoing was a breach of interpersonal trust by
secret informing, which was typically dealt with after 1989 by the
lustration laws. The rationale was to compare the impact that the
fundamentally different methods of the three lustration laws have
on the perception of the wrongdoing. We have selected relatively
low-level wrongdoing because only this type of wrongdoing was dealt
with differently in these three countries. Conversely, we have not
selected criminal cases. The resolution of criminal cases was rather onedimensional
as they usually resulted in a greater or smaller punishment,
or no punishment at all. Thus, our ﬁndings only concern secret
informing as the most typical type of wrongdoing and prevent us from
making generalizations for all cases of wrongdoing.
Respondents followed a ﬁctional, though common, real-life story
of Mr Nova´k in the Czech Republic, Mr Nowak in Poland and
32 GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION
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Mr Kova´cs in Hungary; we consulted local experts to make sure that
the surnames are common and do not resemble any signiﬁcant
lustration case. Respondents heard a wrongdoing that frequently
occurred in workplaces: a person was secretly passing information
about his colleagues’ political opinions to the secret police.
Respondents were then asked questions about Mr Nova´k’s
perceived agency and his eventual condemnation. The questions
were answered on the Likert scale. The question concerning
condemnation did not pose any problem. Indeed, everybody can
pass a positive or negative moral judgment based on the vignette.
However, the question about moral agency was not explicitly derived
from the vignette. During the pre-piloting of the questionnaire
respondents frequently gave a neutral answer. After consulting
survey experts, the survey questionnaire suppressed the neutral
answer in that question. Consequently, the scale for condemnation
ranged from 0 to 4, while the scale for agency ranged from 0 to 3.
The neutral answer was already suppressed in the questionnaire.
The wording of the questionnaire was quite simple:
Vignette: ‘Now I would like to tell you a short story and ask you some
questions about your opinions of the story. In the 1980s, Mr Nova´k worked
as an expert in an enterprise. For several years Mr Nova´k was secretly writing
reports against his then colleagues. These reports were critical of his
colleagues who criticized the political system which existed in our country
before 1989.’
Agency: ‘Did Mr Nova´k write the reports from his own initiative or did the
then system force him to do so?’
Condemnation: ‘Today, should Mr Nova´k be morally condemned for his past?’
The questionnaire was developed in English and translated into
Czech, Hungarian and Polish languages.6
Then an independent
reverse translation to English was solicited to reconcile any
differences that arose. In total, six bilingual speakers were working
on the questionnaire translations. The questionnaire was then
piloted by means of 20 face-to-face interviews in each country, which
resulted in a ﬁne-tuning of the questionnaire wording. Thanks to
the support of the United States Institute of Peace, the questionnaire
was embedded in the nationwide surveys of 3,050 respondents
in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland in 2007. The surveys
were conducted by three prominent survey agencies in Central
Europe: namely, Czech CVVM, Hungarian Ta´rki and Polish OBOP.
33TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE AND CHANGING MEMORIES OF THE PAST
Jc The Author 2013. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
Since OBOP and CVVM also surveyed persons younger than
18 years, these cases were excluded from the analysis to make an
effective comparison with the results of Ta´rki.
RESULTS
The results from the comparisons of means are presented in
Table 2. At ﬁrst glance, the results are striking from the historical
point of view. But in accordance with our hypothesis (1), the sample
mean for agency in the Czech Republic corresponds with the sample
mean for agency in Poland. The results of the Anova test show that
the mean difference of 0.04 is not statistically signiﬁcant. More
importantly, the sample mean for agency in Hungary, which stands
at 1.19, signiﬁcantly differs (p , 0.001) from the mean for agency
in the Czech Republic, which is 1.53, as well as from the mean in
Poland, which is 1.49 (p , 0.001). This suggests that Hungarians
are more likely to think that a person who informed about his
colleagues in his workplace was a victim of the oppressive structures
of the previous regime than Czechs and Poles.
Turning to condemnation, the results are again in line with our
hypothesis (2). The mean for condemnation in the Czech Republic
stands at 2.96, which is the highest among the three countries. The
mean for condemnation in Hungary is 2.35. This is almost the same
as the mean for condemnation in Poland, which stands at 2.36.
The results obtained from Anova analyses show that there is no
signiﬁcant mean difference between Hungary and Poland. Nevertheless,
there is a signiﬁcant difference between the Czech Republic
and Hungary (p , 0.001); and the Czech Republic and Poland
(p , 0.001).
Consequently, the results reveal that the Czech Republic, which
adopted a lustration system based on the retributive strategy of
transitional justice, has the highest scores in agency demands for
condemnation. On the other hand, Hungary, which adopted a
lustration system based on the revelation of past collaboration,
has the lowest scores in both the attribution of agency and demand
for condemnation. Poland, which adopted a lustration system based
on the reconciliatory strategy of public confessions, has scores
almost as high in agency as the Czech Republic and almost as low in
condemnation as Hungary.
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Thus, in line with our hypotheses (Table 1), the retributive and
the reconciliatory models tend to foster a perception of transgressors
as individual agents. The revelation and the reconciliatory
models then lead to low demands for public condemnation of the
same wrongdoing. The pairing of the countries based on their mean
scores is captured in Figure 1.
DISCUSSION
The results of the three opinion poll surveys have been exactly in
accordance with our hypotheses. Transitional justice seems to be a
determining factor of the perception that people in the three
countries have about the past. However, before we can reach any
conclusions, we have to consider the problem of endogeneity; the
mean scores that we have measured may be endogenous to the
countries under study. Something else may have been present even
before a transitional justice strategy was chosen and lustration
Table 2
The Means for Agency and Condemnation in the Czech Republic, Hungary and
Poland
Czech Republic Hungary Poland
Agency
Mean 1.53 1.19 1.49
Standard deviation (0.81) (0.83) (0.76)
N 854 926 788
Range ,0; 3.
Condemnation
Mean 2.96 2.35 2.36
Standard deviation (1.00) (1.25) (1.17)
N 912 1002 853
Range ,0; 4.
Note: The results from Anova analyses further reveal that the mean for
agency in the Czech Republic signiﬁcantly differs from that in Hungary
(p , 0.001) but it does not signiﬁcantly differ from that in Poland
(p 5 0.271); the mean for condemnation in the Czech Republic signiﬁcantly
differs from the mean in Hungary (p , 0.001) as well as from the mean in
Poland (p , 0.001); and the mean for agency in Hungary signiﬁcantly
differs from the mean in Poland (p , 0.001); and the mean for
condemnation in Hungary does not signiﬁcantly differ from that of Poland
(p 5 0.842).
35TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE AND CHANGING MEMORIES OF THE PAST
Jc The Author 2013. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
laws implemented. In that case, we would not be measuring an effect
of lustration systems but an effect of that ‘something else’ that may
be entrenched in the cultural landscape of the three countries in
Central and Eastern Europe.
The claim of endogeneity can be weakened, although never
completely ruled out, by three major theoretical and historical
arguments. Our conclusion that the effects can be attributed to
lustration systems rather than to other variables may be supported
by the following considerations. First, the pattern of our ﬁndings
corresponds with our theoretical considerations, which postulate
causal relations. Second, Poland appears in a peculiar position in
that pattern, following the Czech Republic in one aspect and
Hungary in another. Third, the historical conditions in Hungary
and Czechoslovakia before 1989 suggest a completely different
pattern of individual responsibility and the need for condemnation
from the one we have found.
First, we have extended the theory of presentism, according to
which the past is a function of the present. We have chosen three
distinct lustration systems as proxies for the present transitional
justice factors and argued that these three systems fundamentally
differ in a particular constellation of two aspects: attributing
individual responsibility for the past and postulating condemnation
for the past. The fact that the pattern of our ﬁndings (Figure 1)
corresponds with our theorization (Table 1) suggests that the memory
Figure 1
Attributions of Wrongdoers’ Agency and Demands for Condemnation for the Same
Wrongdoing in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland
Note: The ﬁgure presents the ﬁndings from our survey (Table 2).
36 GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION
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of the past may be shaped by the present. More empirical evidence is
necessary to determine whether we have established causality.
Second, the position of Poland is particularly intriguing. The view
of individual responsibility is on a par with the Czech Republic and
demand for condemnation is on a par with Hungary. This seems to
be an ‘anomaly’ that could be conveniently explained by the effect
of its lustration system. Although the system – owing to its resemblance
to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission – has been
labelled as reconciliatory, Poland is far from being reconciled to the
past (David 2006, 2011). In fact, every signiﬁcant step in the Polish
lustration process was subject to protracted negotiations and political
quarrels (Grzelak 2005) and the public has been deeply divided about
the past for a number of years (Szczerbiak 2002: 559). It would also be
reasonable to expect that Poles would be divided in each of the two
studied aspects rather than having almost extreme positions in each. If
there were no inﬂuence from the lustration process, the location of
Poland would be closer to a line between the Czech Republic and
Hungary (see Figure 2). Instead, Poles tend to lean towards Czechs in
attributing individual responsibility and to Hungarians in waiving any
penalties for collaboration (see Figure 1). They display opinions similar
to those postulated by Poland’s lustration system.
Third, the historical conditions in Czechoslovakia and Hungary
before 1989 suggest a completely different pattern of attributing
individual responsibility and demanding condemnation (see Stan
2009). Czechoslovakia had the most stringent totalitarian regime in
Central Europe. While Poland and Hungary negotiated their
way out of communism, Va´clav Havel was still held as a political
prisoner of the regime in Prague. The fall of the Berlin Wall had
little impact on the Czechoslovak regime, which tried to suppress
the demonstrations until 17 November 1989. In Hungary, the scope
for individual liberty was considerably wider as ideological rigidity
gradually relaxed during the 1980s. Thus, it would seem reasonable to
expect that Czechoslovaks did not have much leverage for resisting
‘offers’ of clandestine collaboration. Clearly, people recruited for
collaboration were exposed to considerably larger pressures in
Czechoslovakia than in Hungary. Hence, the historical conditions
painted a different pattern to the one we have found. We would expect
that the scope for individual responsibility, and consequently demands
for condemnation, would be higher in Hungary than in the Czech
Republic (see Figure 2). In other words, if the attribution of individual
37TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE AND CHANGING MEMORIES OF THE PAST
Jc The Author 2013. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
responsibility and demands for sanctions were based on historical facts,
as argued by essentialists, then the Czech Republic and Hungary would
have to switch positions in Figure 1.
Our consideration suggests that there must have been a change
in the discourse on individual responsibility in Czechoslovakia and
in Hungary. The ﬁnal question that remains to be answered is how
and why individual responsibility was postulated in Czechoslovakia
and why it was not postulated in Hungary. In other words, in order
to complete our argumentation that the present construction of the
past in lustration systems supersedes historical conditions, we have to
demonstrate the social mechanism of the shift. This means delineating
the mechanisms of how structural responsibility changed to individual
responsibility in Czechoslovakia and how individual responsibility
turned into structural responsibility in Hungary.
In Czechoslovakia, the major lustration debate redeﬁned the role
of the individual in the past. The Czechoslovak lustration law was
primarily prospective; it did not mete out punishment to the
socialist regime (David 2003). With a blend of genuine intentions to
secure democratic transition and political interests (cf. Elster 2004:
82) to get rid of political competitors and redistribute ofﬁces to
Figure 2
Historical Perspective on Wrongdoers’ Agency and Demands for Condemnation for the
Same Wrongdoing in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland
Note: We assume that under normal circumstances the relationship between agency and
condemnation would be linear. The demand for the condemnation of a wrongdoer would
increase as he or she is viewed of as a moral agent. The more severe an undemocratic regime
was, the more a wrongdoer is viewed as having acted under duress, the less he or she is seen as
having been a moral agent and the less he or she is condemned today. Before 1989, the
Czech Republic, as a part of Czechoslovakia, experienced the most stringent socialist regime,
while Hungary had the mildest regime. The position of Poland could be seen as somewhere
in between.
38 GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION
Jc The Author 2013. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
newly formed centre-right parties (Civic Democratic Party and Civic
Democratic Alliance), the legislators argued that people who
collaborated in the past should not be eligible to hold certain
positions in the new democracy because they had not been able to
withstand the pressure of the socialist regime. The record of their
weakness was then considered a risk for the nascent democracy. For
this reason, the law required that collaborators were removed from
public ofﬁce but not exposed. The secrecy provisions in the law are
clear evidence that individual responsibility was not the original
intention of Czech lustrations (David 2003: 423–4). Individual
responsibility was only attributed to collaborators ex post through the
implementation of the law. If someone is dismissed, he or she must
have done something in the past.
The shift from individual to structural responsibility in Hungary
occurred from an interplay among three factors: timing; the political
struggle in the second democratic elections that undermined its
legitimacy; and the consequences of the implementation of the
lustration law. Timing seems to be a critical factor which shaped the
kind of lustration system that was approved. The centre-right
coalition was only able to approve the lustration law in 1994. By
that time, the social hardship of economic reforms had eroded
conﬁdence in the centre-right government and people started to
compare their current situation with the socialist regime (see CEU
1992–6). Thus, unlike the Czechoslovak lustration law, which pursued
dismissals without exposing individuals, Hungarian law was based on
the exposure of former collaborators.
It has been alleged that in approving the law, which incorporated
shaming as the only sanction, the ruling coalition attempted to
discredit the opposition coalition of the Hungarian Socialist Party
(Magyar Szocialista Pa´rt – MSZP) and Social Democratic Party
(Szocia´ldemokrata Pa´rt – SZDP), a view that was reinforced by the
fact that the law was passed on the eve of parliamentary elections
that the ruling coalition was about to lose (Oltay 1994). In addition
to the timing, the perceived political expediency in approving the
lustration law rested in targeting the two parties who were expected
to have a larger number of former secret collaborators in their ranks
than others: the Socialist Party, an ex-communist party, and the
Social Democratic Party, an ex-dissident party. The law was seen as
being twisted for political purposes. Moreover, the renewal of the
coalition between the Socialist Party and the Social Democratic Party
39TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE AND CHANGING MEMORIES OF THE PAST
Jc The Author 2013. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
after the 1994 elections, in which the latter effectively granted moral
concessions to the former, further dented the legitimacy of the
lustration process in Hungary. If dissidents could work with
communists, why was a law needed to deal with the past?
The implementation of the lustration law then exposed collaborators
who denied any personal responsibility for the past. Those
who were publicly exposed typically denied their involvement
with the previous regime and claimed that they were forced to
collaborate, or they admitted collaborating for patriotic reasons.7
Once the credibility of the process was questioned, the acceptance
of the individuals’ excuses was given larger prominence than the
judicially veriﬁed outcomes of collaboration. The switch from
individual to structural responsibility was complete.
LIMITATIONS
Although we have been able to present some theoretical and
historical arguments against the problem of endogeneity, we cannot
completely rule out the possibility that something else may have
caused the different perceptions that people in the three countries
have about secret informing. For instance, we can never rule out
the role of the media, which could magnify a short-term impulse
and shift it in a particular direction. Ideally, the survey would be
repeated in order to determine the direction in which the collective
memory is evolving. Thus, critics may point out that what is measured
here is a ‘collected memory’, rather than a ‘collective memory’, as
theorized by Olick (2007: 23–33).
CONCLUSION
The problem of malleability versus durability of collective memory
underpins one of the major debates in the area of conﬂict
resolution, democratization, history and social studies. This article
has contributed to the debate by using transitional justice strategies
as a proxy for a presentist inﬂuence, claiming that the strategies
redeﬁned the historical-mental picture of the past in the three
countries and delineated the social mechanism of ‘changing
history’. It has come to the conclusion that it is likely that the past
is a function of the present.
40 GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION
Jc The Author 2013. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
These ﬁndings, if supported by further research, could have
implications in countries dealing with various legacies of wars, civil
wars, ethnic conﬂict and authoritarian regimes. They signal to the
democratization and conﬂict resolution communities that many
protracted transitions are in fact ‘manageable’. It may not be the
past that creates obstacles to peace and democracy but its representation
by present political forces and policies. The roots of conﬂicts may
not be in the past, in some ancient or primordial hatreds, but in the
present. These ﬁndings do not attempt to trivialize the wrongdoings
that did occur in the past; neither do they suggest that historical
injustices should not be rectiﬁed. They may merely provide the conﬂict
resolution community with a degree of measured optimism that the
past may not be an insurmountable obstacle to peace. The present may
be the problem.
NOTES
1
Scholars in this stream typically draw on Halbwachs (1992).
2
Vignettes are systematically elaborated descriptions of concrete situations (see
Alexander and Becker 1978).
3
There is a parallel between explaining collective memory and transitional justice.
Transitional justice has been explained by the interplay of the present and the past
factors (see Welsh 1996). In this article, however, we aim to explain collective
memory and use transitional justice as an instrument; we do not aspire to explain
transitional justice.
4
The scholars cited earlier (Markovits 2001; Olick 1999; Schuman and Scott 1989) all
focus on the origin.
5
The law was revised in 1996 and after 2002 superseded by the law on the opening of
secret police archives.
6
The questionnaire also included other questions (see, for example, David 2011: 240–1).
7
Hungarian Prime Minister Pe´ter Medgyessy, for instance, collaborated with secret
services in order to secure Hungarian membership in the IMF (see, for example,
Gal and Szakacz 2002).
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