Description
Book SynopsisApologia Politica defines and explores the nature of public apology. Focusing on collectivities and their agencies in the apology process, author Girma Negash examines public apology as ethical and public discourse, recommends criteria for the apology process, analyzes historical and contemporary cases, and formulates a guide to ethical conduct in public apologies. This is a groundbreaking work, elaborating upon the interface between ethics and statecraft in the domain of public apology. Using democracy, moral identity, and accumulated wisdom as a yardstick in the prescription of ethical conduct, Apologia Politica proposes four imperatives for successful public apology: acknowledgement; public exposure and truth-telling; remorse through public record; and, finally, defining identity for accountability. It is a valuable resource for those interested in peace-building or the relationships between Germany and Israel, Japan and its neighboring countries, the international community and Rwa
Trade ReviewA decade and a half ago Nicholas Tavuchis noted that a genuine apology on behalf of a political body 'is an accomplishment of no mean order.' Girma Negash's Apologia Politica is a like accomplishment. He knows the differences between failed and successful apologies by high officials concerning the low deeds of state-sponsored atrocity. The book is a triumph of interdisciplinary research and writing. It combines historical accuracy, political realism, and moral insight concerning one of the greatest of all political challenges: how to mend and heal relations between victims and perpetrators of vast evil? Negash describes credible apology as a combination of acknowledgment of a collective wrong, identification of those responsible, public truth-telling about the wrong, and citizen-supported remorse. It is a rigorous formula. If citizens and political leaders of our vexed global community learn to practice that rigor, the twenty-first century might yet recover from the collective sins of the twentieth. Here is wise guidance into the realization of that hope. -- Donald W. Shriver, Jr, President of the Faculty and William E. Dodge Professor of Applied Christianity Emeritus, Union Theological Seminary
With astute theorizing and assiduous scholarship, Girma Negash has produced an outstanding investigation of hitherto neglected yet extremely important ethical and political dimensions of inter-state relations. -- Michael J. Shapiro, University of Hawai'i, Manoa
Table of ContentsChapter 1 The Problematic of Political Apology Chapter 2 German-Jewish (Israeli) Relations: From Zealous Accountability to Belated Apology Chapter 3 A Political Calculus of Apology: Japan and Its Neighbors Chapter 4 Voices and Silences in Mourning Rwanda Chapter 5 Diplomacy and Crocodile Tears: U.S. Apologies to China Chapter 6 The Limits and Potential of Political Apologies Chapter 7 Bibliography Chapter 8 Index
