Dealing with Wars and Dictatorships

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

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2. General Introduction

   • Liora Israël, Guillaume Mouralis

   Pages 1-20

3. Life and Death of Concepts and Categories

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 21-21

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   2. “Épuration”: History of a Word

      • Alya Aglan, Emmanuelle Loyer

      Pages 23-38

   3. Humanity Seized by International Criminal Justice

      • Sara Liwerant

      Pages 39-58

   4. Dealing with Collaboration in Belgium After the Second World War: From Activism to Collaboration and Incivism

      • Dirk Luyten

      Pages 59-76

   5. Transitional Justice as Universal Narrative

      • Jon Elster

      Pages 77-81

   6. The Invention of “Transitional Justice” in the 1990s

      • Guillaume Mouralis

      Pages 83-100

4. Implementation of Categories and Savoir-Faire

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 101-101

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5. Implementation of Categories and Savoir-Faire

   1. “Transitional Justice” and National “Mastering of the Past”: Criminal Justice and Liberalization Processes in West Germany After 1945

      • Annette Weinke

      Pages 103-121

   2. Poor Little Belgium? Belgian Trials of German War Criminals, 1944–1951

      • Pieter Lagrou

      Pages 123-143

   3. From Revolution to Restoration. Transnational Implications of the Greek Purge of Wartime Collaborators

      • Dimitris Kousouris

      Pages 145-161

   4. The Defense in the Dock: Professional Purges of French Lawyers After the Second World War

      • Liora Israël

      Pages 163-176

6. Transnational Circulation and Hybridization of Categories

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 177-177

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   2. Law and the Soviet Purge: Domestic Renewal and International Convergences

      • Vanessa Voisin

      Pages 179-196

   3. Circulation of Models of Épuration After the Second World War: From France to Italy

      • Valeria Galimi

      Pages 197-208

   4. Reassessing the Boundaries of Transitional Justice: An Inquiry on Political Transitions, Armed Conflicts, and Human Rights Violations

      • David Restrepo Amariles

      Pages 209-234

   5. The Emergence of Transitional Justice as a Professional International Practice

      • Sandrine Lefranc, Frédéric Vairel

      Pages 235-252

   6. The Uncertain Place of Purge Within Transitional Justice, and the Limitations of International Law in the World’s Response to Mass Atrocity

      • Mark Osiel

      Pages 253-269

Democratic ‘transitions’ in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and South Africa, often studied under the conceptual rubric of ‘transitional justice’, have involved the formation of public policies toward the past that are multifaceted and often ambitious. Recent scholarship rarely questions the concepts and categories transposed from one country to another. This is true both in the language of political life and in the social sciences examining past-oriented public policy, especially policy toward ‘ethnic cleansing’ and the line between the language of political practice, legal analysis, and scholarly discourse has been quite porous. This book examines how these phenomena have been described and understood by focusing recent processes, such as the advent of international criminal justice, in relation to previous postwar and recent purges. By crossing disciplinary approaches and periods, the authors pay attention to three main aspects: the legal or political concepts used (and/or the ones mobilized in the academic work); the circulation of categories, know-how, and arguments; the different levels that can shed light on transitions.

• Human Rights Violations
• International Criminal Justice
• Purges, ethnic cleansing
• Transitional justice
• Épuration

• Centre Maurice Halbwachs, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris, France

  Liora Israël

• Institut des sciences sociales du politi, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre, Nanterre Cedex, France

  Guillaume Mouralis

Liora Israël is a sociologist at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and assistant director of the Centre Maurice Halbwachs, Paris. Guillaume Mouralis is an historian and sociologist at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and a member of the Institut des Sciences Sociales du Politique, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre.