Some Histories Stay Secret, but not Entirely Silent: Dealing with the Communist Past in Central and Eastern Europe
by Roxana Radu,
Abstract: From 2004 onwards, a second wave of lustration proposals emerged throughout Central and Eastern Europe, at a time when EU accession already started. Among the post-communist states, Poland, already an EU member state, extended the purpose of its previous lustration law in 2006. The same year marked the heated debate over the drafting of a lustration law in Romania, where previous proposals on this issue were not validated by the Parliament. Sixteen years after the regime change in these countries, the assessment of the formal mechanisms to deal with the past permeated the public agenda in an attempt to answer the question of how much of the documented illegal activities committed during communism remained secret and purposefully uncovered. In this article, I scrutinize the lustration processes and debates up to 2008 in two countries from the region. Based on that evidence, I argue that the salience of the transitional justice controversies during the second wave of lustration proposals plays a symbolic function, rather than pursuing a consistent policy endeavor.
The latest issue of the Romanian Journal of Political Science (PolSci) covers traditional topics from international diplomacy and security, to understanding the communism inheritance in Central and East European countries and international relations between these and the European... »
Since the demise of communism in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in 1989, transitional justice has been invoked as the most appropriate means to deal with the past injustices while strengthening the newly - adopted democratic procedures. Predominantly chosen over criminal procedures or truth commissions, lustration was initially understood as a temporary process of screening public officials for links with the Communist Secret Services, meant essentially to reconcile the need for trust-based institutions and to protect the development of liberal democracy. Nevertheless, with democratic procedures formally in place, under pursuit,... »
Introduction
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Introduction
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International Advisory Board
Alina Mungiu-Pippidi (chair) Hertie School of Governance
Larry Diamond Stanford University
Tom Gallagher University of Bradford
Alena Ledeneva University College London
Michael McFaul Stanford University
Dennis Deletant Georgetown University
Helen Wallace London School of Economics and Political Science
