Title The politics of official apologies / Melissa Nobles

Published New York : Cambridge University Press, 2008

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Description 1 online resource (xiii, 200 pages) Contents Toward a membership theory of apologies -- History of national memberships in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States -- To apologize or not to apologize : national histories and official apologies -- Beyond sentiment? : apologies and their effects -- The weight of history and the value of apologies -- Appendix: Twentieth- and twenty-first-century public apologies Summary "Intense interest in past injustice lies at the center 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. Melissa 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, the rectification of which, they argue, should guide changes in present-day government policies. 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."--Jacket Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 167-187) and index Notes Print version record Subject Civil rights -- North America -- History Civil rights -- Australia -- History Civil rights -- New Zealand -- History Reconciliation -- Political aspects -- North America Reconciliation -- Political aspects -- Australia Reconciliation -- Political aspects -- New Zealand Apologizing. POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Political Freedom & Security -- Civil Rights. POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Political Freedom & Security -- Human Rights. Apologizing. Civil rights. Reconciliation -- Political aspects. Australia. New Zealand. North America. Genre/Form History. Form Electronic book ISBN 9780511378928 0511378920 0511378033 9780511378034

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