The Journal of Political Philosophy: Volume 21, Number 2, 2013, pp.

200–220

When the State Says “Sorry”: State Apologies as

Exemplary Political Judgments*
Mihaela Mihai
Social Sciences, University of Coimbra, Portugal

B ETWEEN the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries, Europeans traded

approximately 8 million slaves out of Africa, 2.5 million of whom were
transported on British ships.1 The slave trade was extremely profitable as it
strengthened the economic interdependence of the territories bordering the
Atlantic, greatly benefiting the European empires. The first country to officially
make slave trading illegal was Denmark in 1792, but today, Britain appears to be
the most vocal state in claiming credit for leading the way. In 1807, following
efforts by a minority of intellectuals and members of the Quaker community, the
British Parliament passed an act that abolished British participation in the trade
of enslaved Africans.2
Beginning in the 1970s, considerable critical research was published on
Britain’s participation in the slave trade. The academic work ran parallel with an
increased interest in England’s unsavory imperial past in literature, film,
television, cultural studies publications, and think-tank reports.3 Together, these

*Earlier versions of this article were presented in 2010 at the annual meeting of the Canadian
Political Science Association; the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association; the
joint meeting of the Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto and the Centre for Research in Ethics,
the University of Montreal; and the international conference “Democracy Today,” organized at the
University of Minho. I would like to thank John Francis Burke, Daniel Weinstock, Melissa Williams,
and Joe Heath for their insightful suggestions. Serdar Tekin, Leah Soroko, Alex Livingston, Amit
Ron, Michael Cunningham, and Inder Marwah charitably commented on the article at various points
in time. Alessandro Ferrara led me to some crucial insights for which I am particularly grateful. I
would also like to warmly thank Mathias Thaler, who read several versions of the article and who
provided constructive criticism and encouragement. Last but not least, the recommendations by
Robert Goodin and the three anonymous reviewers of the Journal of Political Philosophy helped
improve the manuscript, and for this I thank them. Research for this article benefitted from the
financial support of the Foundation for Science and Technology, Portugal; and the European Social
Fund. The usual disclaimers apply.
1
See Barbara L. Solow, “Introduction,” Slavery and the Rise of the Atlantic System, ed. B. L. Solow
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 1–20; Marika Sherwood, After Abolition:
Britain and the Slave Trade Since 1807 (London: I. B. Tauris, 2007), p. 8.
2
Sherwood, After Abolition, p. 10. Sherwood shows that 1807 did not actually mark the end of
British slave trading. It took a series of subsequent laws and significant international negotiations
with the other European traders to stop the abominations.
3
I am referring here to the Parekh Report sponsored by the Runnymede Trust in 2000, avail-
able at <http://www.runnymedetrust.org/projects-and-publications/projects/past-projects/meb/report.
html> (accessed July 18, 2011).

© 2012 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9760.2012.00418.x
 WHEN THE STATE SAYS “SORRY” 201

efforts paved the way for a public reckoning with the way in which the country’s
deep involvement in the slave trade affected British collective identity.4
The conjunction of the bicentenary of the 1807 Abolition of the Slave Trade
Act with apologies by the Anglican Church, by the mayor of London Ken
Livingstone, and by the City of Liverpool made it impossible for then prime
minister Tony Blair to keep silent. In an article published in New Nation in
November 2006, and during subsequent commemoratory events at the Elmina
Castle in Ghana, Blair expressed “deep sorrow” over Britain’s participation in
the slave trade, a practice he equated with a crime against humanity.5
The prime minister’s statements divided the British public. On the one hand,
advocates of a more comprehensive apology found Blair’s efforts wanting in
terms of taking responsibility and making a commitment to redress the derivative
economic, political, and cultural disadvantages related to the past injustices.
Blair’s story left out many of the systematic atrocities committed by the British
against Africans, focused on the pioneering role that Britain played in abolishing
the slave trade, and asymmetrically celebrated white abolitionists while effacing
the memory of black resistance. This left many indignant and disappointed.6
On the other hand, a series of vehement objections were raised against the idea
of apologizing for the past. Concerned with Britain’s self-image, critics pointed
out that an apology would focus attention on negative aspects of the country’s
history, to the detriment of its merits in eliminating oppression. Some groups,
encouraged by the evasiveness and ambiguity of the prime minister’s statement,
felt that they needed to highlight England’s pioneering role in fighting slavery
worldwide. They thought the act of apologizing was tarnishing the country’s
image by unnecessarily denigrating its achievements, and constituted an
incomprehensible and dangerous effort to re-write history and to portray the
British Empire as an active force of injustice. Conservative commentators and
public figures concerned about the state’s remarkable tradition and history
objected to the irrational degradation of its accomplishments.7 Sustained efforts
were made to underline Britain’s decisive role in the abolition movement and to
promote a positive image of its history.
4
For an analysis of the social and cultural processes constituting the background for the British
debate, see Elizabeth Kowaleski Wallace, The British Slave Trade and the Public Memory (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2006).
5
For the immediate reaction to the New Nation article, see David Smith, “Blair: Britain’s ‘sorrow’
for shame of slave trade,” Guardian, November 26, 2006, available at <http://www.guardian.co.uk/
politics/2006/nov/26/race.immigrationpolicy> and Greg Hurst, “Blair ‘regret’ over slavery not
enough, say campaigners,” Times Online, November 27, 2006, available at <http://www.timesonline.
co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1088132.ece> (accessed July 17, 2011). On the commemorations at Elmina
castle, see BBC News, “Slave trade shameful, Blair says,” available at <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/
hi/uk_news/6493507.stm> (accessed July 17, 2011).
6
For a report on the discontent surrounding the events in 2007, see Amanda Kirton, “Discontent
voiced over slavery events,” BBC News, April 3, 2007, available at <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_
news/6523327.stm> (accessed July 18, 2011).
7
For such a position see, for example, Charles Moore, “Blair’s sorry apology for slavery,”
Telegraph, December 2, 2006, available at <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/
3634825/Blairs-sorry-apology-for-slavery.html> (accessed July 18, 2011).
202 MIHAELA MIHAI

In their analysis of official, popular, and media responses to the bicentenary of

the abolition of the slave trade, Emma Waterton and Ross Wilson expose the
kind of manoeuvres that were used to deflect both accusations of complicity and
demands for an apology.8 By sidestepping issues of race; by focusing on the fact
that these events belonged in the past, and that black Britons lived much better
today; by constructing ‘slavery’ as an independent agent itself; by deferring blame
and responsibility; and by denying the relevance of slavery for present inequities,
the public discourse managed to stifle the potential for a critical reflection on
history and contributed to the reproduction of problematic attitudes. Needless to
say, African, African British, and African Caribbean groups within the
UK—groups who felt their status as descendants of slaves continued to influence
their lives negatively—were greatly disappointed.9
The fear that discussing the past might damage the community’s self-image
pervades many democratic societies with a history of injustice. Turkey’s refusal to
acknowledge the Armenian genocide and the US’s problematic relationship with
its long history of racial discrimination are two other notorious contexts where
a discomfort with the past prevents sincere processes of national reckoning.10
Given the anchoring of such arguments in the public’s self-identification, this
article seeks to answer the following questions: how can we re-think apologies as
political acts that contest citizens’ attachment to a partial and dishonest view of
history? How should democratic representatives offer apologies, given the
presence of public fears concerning their deprecating effects?
Our interest lies with the issue of state apologies to formerly disenfranchised
and abused groups, groups who have been targets of physical, political,
economic, and cultural violations at the hands of the state.11 Some of these groups

8
Waterton and Wilson, “Talking the talk: policy, popular and media responses to the bicentenary
of the abolition of the slave trade using the abolition discourse.” Discourse Society, 2009 (20),
381–99.
9
Ibid.
10
Rehabilitating the names of the masterminds and perpetrators of the Armenian genocide, and
funding research programs that maintain a skewed view of history, represent just two of the
maneuvers through which Turkey has avoided an honest reckoning with its unsavory past. For an
examination of the relationship between Turkish identity and racist nationalism, see: Stephan H.
Astourian, “Modern Turkish identity and the Armenian genocide: from prejudice to racist
nationalism,” Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide, ed. R. G. Hovannisian
(Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1998), pp. 23–50. The issue of black reparations in the
US is the object of an extensive literature. For a few recent analyses of the kind of objections
historically raised by the US government and parts of the white population against an apology and
reparations to Black Americans, see: Roy L. Brooks, ed., When Sorry Isn’t Enough. The Controversy
over Apologies and Reparations for Human Injustice (New York: New York University Press, 1999);
David Horowitz, Uncivil Wars: The Controversy Over Reparations for Slavery (San Francisco:
Encounter Books, 2002); Roy L. Brooks, Forgiveness and Atonement: A New Model for Black
Reparations (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004); Christopher Kutz, “Justice in
reparations: the cost of memory and the value of talk,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 32 (2004),
277–312; Elazar Barkan and Alexander Karn, Taking Wrongs Seriously: Apologies and
Reconciliation (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006).
11
In my view, different motivational and justificatory logics are at work in inter-state apologies. For
a good overview of such apologies, see Jennifer Lind, Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008).
 WHEN THE STATE SAYS “SORRY” 203

still suffer the repercussions of this violence in the present. This article aims to
account for apologies from the point of view of the societies in whose name they
are offered, and to see how they can further ongoing processes of transformation
within the public cultures of liberal democracies. More precisely, I seek to show
how such a political act might engage resistant groups, who see the official
re-examination of the past as a threat.
Broadening the basis of support for the apology is crucial both in terms of
its democratic legitimacy—the more support for the apology, the more
legitimate the apology—but also in terms of its effectiveness. That is to say, in
order to prevent further abuses, the apology must not remain an elite project,
promoted only by intellectuals, certain civil society associations, victims’
groups, and state officials. This article will focus on dealing with the “self-
image objection,” that is, the objection that examining the past unnecessarily
taints our present view of ourselves. Against those who fear the stigmatizing
effects of such efforts, this article argues that an apology should encourage
citizens to feel good when they apologize, because “we” live in accordance
with our normative commitments when condemning past discrimination and
working towards eliminating its impact on the present and the future.12
Building on insights from the philosophy of judgment, I argue that a well-
orchestrated apology actually puts “us, the community” in the best possible
light: as liberal democrats who live up to our political identity by taking
responsibility for our unsavory past. To the extent that an official “sorry” takes
the form of an exemplary political judgment, it has the potential to open up the
path for attitudinal change within the public sphere of mature, yet imperfectly
just, democracies.
In the first section I argue that, while most of the literature on apologies
treats their democratizing potential in terms of recognizing the victims and
their descendants, we need also to pay attention to the way in which apologies
can help challenge skewed and dangerous visions of the past. Furthermore, we
need to consider how this goal can be achieved under circumstances of
significant public resistance. I then turn to the concept of exemplary political
judgment, borrowed from the extensive literature in the philosophy of
judgment, in order to provide a theoretical framework for understanding the
ways in which certain kinds of political acts can help change citizens’ self-
understanding. This exercise in philosophical appropriation aims to delineate a
possible response to the “self-image objection.” Next, I sketch some ideas
about how a state apology can provoke those who oppose it to judge that
“we” can be the kind of society that apologizes for past wrongs. I conclude by
addressing a few potential criticisms that one might raise in response to the
account developed here.

12
By “we” I refer to the liberal democratic community in whose name the apology is offered.
204 MIHAELA MIHAI

I. APOLOGIES AND THE PUBLIC CULTURE OF IMPERFECTLY

JUST DEMOCRACIES
The last few decades have witnessed a sharp rise in the number of public apologies
for past abuses by state representatives. The nature of apologies and the goals they
can serve have become common topics of inquiry in a number of disciplines in the
social sciences and humanities, including philosophy, political science, theology,
history, and sociology.13 Within this multidisciplinary literature a lot of work has
addressed the beneficial effects that official expressions of regret can have for the
formerly oppressed. Apologies aim to redress injustices by providing symbolic
recognition and paving the way to reconciliation, helping the victimized regain
their sense of the self, reintegrating them in the moral and political community by
correcting memory, and enabling them to develop trusting relationships with the
rest of society.14 The main idea advanced by this literature is that apologies serve
democracy by extending the boundaries of political membership, that is, by
including the formerly excluded and empowering them to act as citizens of the
democratic polity.15 While acknowledging the merits of this body of work, this
article shifts the focus to one particular obstacle that acts of official regret face. I
examine here apologies from the point of view of the often deeply divided
communities in whose name they are offered, and consider how apologies might
help challenge distorted versions of history.
The idea that the importance of apologies lies not only in their expanding the
boundaries of the demos, but also in their impact on societal culture, has had its
share of attention in the literature.16 In a recent book addressing political apologies
for state-sponsored injustice, Danielle Celermajer offers the most elaborate
theoretical account of the role that such political acts play in the transformation
of a nation’s public identity.17 I begin by briefly outlining her main arguments, and
then construct my own position through a critical engagement with her account.
Celermajer takes actual practices of apology as a starting point for her study,
arguing that, by participating in the reproduction of a culture that made possible
13
For a few representative texts of this growing, multidisciplinary field see: Trudy Govier, Taking
Wrongs Seriously: Apologies and Reconciliation (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006);
Mark Gibney and Erik Roxstrom, “The status of state apologies,” Human Rights Quarterly, 23
(2001), 911–39; Mark Gibney et al., eds, The Age of Apology: Facing up to the Past (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008); Lisa Strom Villadsen, “Speaking on behalf of others:
rhetorical agency and epideictic functions in official apologies,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 38
(2008), 25–45; Nick Smith, I Was Wrong (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
14
Melissa Nobles, The Politics of Official Apologies (New York: Cambridge University Press,
2008).
15
See, for example, Kathleen Gill, “The moral functions of an apology,” Philosophical Forum, 31
(2000), pp. 11–27; Trudy Govier and Wilhelm Verwoerd, “The promise and pitfalls of apology,”
Journal of Social Philosophy, 33 (2002), 67–82; Stanley L. Engerman, “Apologies, regrets and
reparations,” European Review, 17 (2009), 593–610.
16
See, for example: Elizabeth Kiss, “Saying we’re sorry: liberal democracy and the rhetoric of
collective identity,” Constellations, 4 (1998), 387–98; Brooks, Forgiveness and Atonement; Villadsen,
“Speaking on behalf of others.”
17
Danielle Celermajer, The Sins of the Nation and the Ritual of Apology (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2009).
 WHEN THE STATE SAYS “SORRY” 205

systematic violations, “we” are collectively responsible for them. “We” are
responsible by virtue of who “we” are, not because of what “we” have done. She
writes,
. . . it was this political community that provided the conditions for the wrongdoing
to occur or, more pointedly . . . had the community not been the one that it was or
sustained the political culture that it did, the wrongful acts could not have occurred,
or at least not systematically and not without there having been significant and
generalised public protest.18

Since the problem is at the level of public culture—itself the result of a mutually
reinforcing relationship between individuals and institutions19—the solution
must be located at this very level. A marked departure from liberal,
individualistic, causality-based accounts of responsibility is necessary to
understand the nature of continued systematic discrimination and to imagine a
potential solution for it.20 Celermajer draws on insights from Jewish and
Christian notions and institutions of repentance to support an account of
collective apologies as speech acts through which “we” ritually express shame for
our past, appraise the impact of the past on the present and the future, and make
a commitment to change who “we” are by bridging the gap between our ideals
and our practices.21 She argues that the dissonance between our glorious national
pride and our discriminatory practices can be made apparent by encouraging a
feeling of shame for who “we” have been as a nation, that is, for perpetuating the
kind of societal culture that made—and could still make—abuses possible:
. . . the apology is, in the first movement, an acknowledgement of a collective failure
to live up to an ideal ethical principle and, in its second, a public, performative
declaration of a new commitment, a new covenant for now and into the future.22

For Celermajer, an apology is successful to the extent that its uptake23 is

constituted not by expressions of forgiveness by the victims’ group and/or their
descendants, but by a change in the nature of the relationships between groups
18
Ibid., p. 239.
19
Celermajer rightly argues against overly simplistic accounts of public culture, in either
subjective/psychological or objective/structural terms. Public culture is constituted in sites where
people judge and act and, in doing so, collectively perpetuate—and at the same time
transform—multivalent, indeterminate, and incomplete social meanings. See ibid., p. 226.
20
Celermajer, ibid., distinguishes between historical and transitional apologies: while the former
address long-past abuses, the latter closely follow the regime change. By focusing on apologies for
who “we” are, as members of a community that committed abuses and could still do so (and not for
what “we” have done) she deflects the familiar argument against apologies, that is, the argument
according to which it would be absurd for the present generation to apologize for wrongs committed
long ago. However, the focus on collective responsibility does not preclude the possibility that
apologies be supplemented with trials for victimizers, as part of a holistic engagement with the past.
21
See ibid., chs 3 and 4. Celermajer’s ambition seems to go beyond using insights from Judaism
and Christianity for making sense of apologies as performative rituals of collective repentance. The
idea of focusing on religious forms of acting in the world as politically relevant and as already present
in our institutions underlies her claim that the liberal individualistic perspective cannot account for
many political phenomena within the public sphere of secular constitutional democracies.
22
Ibid., p. 247.
23
Celermajer uses this term in its Austinian sense.
206 MIHAELA MIHAI

and in the public culture of the political community in whose name the apology
is offered. In other words, an apology achieves its goal if the perpetrator group
transforms its self-understanding by living up to its ideal normative identity and
by redefining the status of victims as objects of ethical respect. In this way, the
apology pushes the polity towards a political and cultural context in which the
wrongful actions could no longer proceed with a people’s stamp of legitimacy.
In order to fulfill its transformational potential, an apology must meet a
series of conditions. Celermajer proposes a list—quite consensual in the
literature—about the essential elements of a valid apology.24 First, an apology
must include a comprehensive inventory of violations, an articulation of the gap
between declared values and actual practices, an explicit acknowledgement of
responsibility that identifies the community as a protagonist in the violation, an
explicit and performative expression of apology, and the promise of a different
future. Secondly, in order to ensure the authority of the speaker, she must be
recognized as representing the group and as authentically articulating the nation’s
regret. Last but not least, the dimension of timing: apologies must be offered
when there is some distance from the wrongs committed, but at a time when the
violations resonate with pressing issues in contemporary politics.25 Given that
past injustices often continue to have negative repercussions on the lives of
citizens in the present, I venture to suggest that opportunities continuously
present themselves. While currently we have no standard blueprint for apologies,
Celermajer expresses the hope that, with the growing entrenchment of the
practice, a more robust conventional procedure will eventually gain currency.26
Celermajer’s account of the problem and its solution at the level of the societal
culture is pertinent and well-argued. What’s more, her conception of apologies as
moments of re-foundation, in which communities make an official pledge never
to allow abuses again, is insightful and valuable. There are, however, a few points
that I would like to raise. Through a critical dialogue with Celermajer, I now
begin to delineate my own account of apology’s transformative potential.
First, a qualification. If, like Celermajer, we examine actual practices of state
apologies, it becomes obvious that liberal democracies alone apologize for past
injustices.27 Broadly speaking, the literature draws an inherent connection

24
The authors who deal with this issue position themselves on a continuum ranging from more lax
to very stringent requirements on the act of apology. For a very strict view see Smith, I Was Wrong.
For middle positions, see Gill, “The moral functions of an apology”; Gibney and Roxstrom, “The
status of state apologies”; Gibney et al., The Age of Apology.
25
For a discussion of these criteria see Celermajer, The Sins of the Nation, pp. 252–8.
26
Ibid., p. 55.
27
Examples of domestic apologies by democratic governments include: Canada’s apology and
compensation to Chinese Canadians for discriminatory immigration treatment, US’s amends to
Japanese Americans for their internment during World War II, Chilean president Patricio Aylwin’s
apology to the victims of the military dictatorship, and Jacques Chirac’s 1995 official apology for
Vichy’s anti-Semitic policies. Australia’s and Canada’s apologies to their Aboriginal groups for forced
assimilation policies, Guatemala’s partial apology to the Maya community for the massive killings in
the second half of the 20th century, and Peru’s apology to its citizens of African descent, are instances
where colonizers expressed sorrow over the harm done to the colonized.
 WHEN THE STATE SAYS “SORRY” 207

between liberal democracies and the practice of apologies. Such a connection can
be explained by these societies’ commitment to the norm of equal respect and
concern for all,28 and also, I would add, by the existence of various avenues for
redress that victims’ groups can use to put pressure on democratic institutions.
The imperative to treat all citizens with equal concern and respect is fundamental
to the normative integrity of a liberal democracy. A commitment to upholding
this principle in practice should ideally inform all laws, policies, and the public
culture. Given the diversity of democracies worldwide, this commitment takes
different forms depending on variations in political and historical contexts. Even
within a given community, it remains plurivocal: reasonable disagreement over its
interpretation remains at the core of democratic politics.
But crimes such as enslavement, land displacement, ethnic discrimination and
cleansing, cultural disruptions, and political seizures all constitute instances in
which the principle of equal concern and respect for all persons has not been
realized institutionally. Groups have been often or perpetually excluded from full
membership, while their conceptions of justice have been dismissed as invalid
normative sources for the community’s values and institutions.29 Official
expressions of regret by democratic elites—including political apologies—are
motivated and justified by the corrective impulse to expand membership,
re-establish equality, and empower formerly excluded groups.
The fact that there is a relationship of normative implication—as well as one
of empirical association—between apologies and liberal democracy is relevant for
two reasons. First, it provides the background of normative principles within
which the apologizer can anchor her plea for a societal reflection over the past.
A democratic leader apologizing for past injustice can appeal to the principle of
equal concern and respect for all as the basis for condemning past injustices.
Enshrined in the constitutions of liberal democracies, such principles provide
normative guidance for concrete policies of redress. Second, the relationship
between liberal democracies and apologies enables us to identify the legitimacy
conditions for an apology. Such conditions of legitimacy will weigh heavily on the
way in which democratic elites organize the apology and on the programs that
precede it and prepare the public for official regret.
A second point, related to an apology’s democratic legitimacy, concerns the
fact that Celermajer does not systematically address the issue of some groups’
resistance to re-covenanting.30 It is certain that, when democratically elected

28
Apology is considered a mark of liberal democracies by a number of authors. See Kiss, “Saying
we’re sorry”; Juliette Fette, “Apology and the past in contemporary France,” French Politics, Culture
and Society, 26 (#2) (2008), 78–113; Katherine Smits, “Deliberation and past injustice: recognition
and the reasonableness of apology in the Australian case,” Constellations, 15 (2008), 236–48.
29
For an illuminating account of the cultural annihilation of a group, see Jonathan Lear, Radical
Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006).
30
Celermajer, The Sins of the Nation, p. 261. Celermajer mentions the risk that, faced with an
unsavory past, the nation may cultivate a stubborn belief that the past was “beautiful.” Her solution
is the apology as a ritual of repentance.
208 MIHAELA MIHAI

representatives offer apologies, they do not authentically express the nation’s

unanimous regret. As we have seen, vehement contestation accompanies the
government’s decision to excavate the past. While ideally meant to serve the
cause of democracy—by reminding communities what their normative identity
commits them to, by re-establishing social relationships on fairer grounds, and by
pledging never to allow abuses again—apologies rarely, if ever, enjoy the support
of a strong majority. Empirical surveys confirm that, most of the time, such
political acts are only supported by a part of the population, and are the result of
concerted efforts by intellectual and political elites and civil society
organizations.31 Resistance to an examination of the past is often animated by
worries regarding the community’s self-image. Given such resistance, how can
democratic leaders provoke societal reflection so as to undermine problematic
attitudes and visions of the past? How can support for the apology be broadened
to increase its legitimacy? And how can the apology be effective in its deterrence
function if it meets with significant resistance?
This brings me to my third critical point. Celermajer’s proposed criteria for a
conventional procedure for apologies do not do justice to the nature of apologies
as political acts.32 While these criteria comprise rough guidelines for a minimally
acceptable valid apology, they do not register the nature of an apology as a force
for democratization. The form an apology takes ultimately depends on the
context and on the resources its supporters can mobilize in persuading resisters to
abandon a skewed, unjust view of their history. It also crucially depends on the
kind of objections raised against it, on the nature of past injustice, on the kind of
ramifications oppression has in the present, and on many other contextual
variables. Given this, I argue that a check-list model of apology fails to capture
faithfully the kind of imaginative act that an apology must be in order to
effectively influence public beliefs and attitudes.
Last but not least, shaming a community into acknowledging its violent past
is a risky political strategy that can trigger a conservative backlash.33 This would
be particularly dangerous in cases where atrocities took place long ago and the
living citizens are not the direct perpetrators of violence. A re-founding based on
shame might push the community into a more radical, reactionary position.
Encouraging repentance may exacerbate tensions and feed the kind of inverted
racism witnessed in certain sectors of British public opinion. In addition,

31
See Nobles, The Politics of Official Apologies.
32
She is not alone in pleading for a proceduralist test for the validity of apology. See also Smith,
I Was Wrong.
33
Celermajer distinguishes between acts of shaming—the message comes from outside of the
targeted group and is imposed on the members of the group—and the experience of shame—arising
from an internal tension between knowledge of past injustice and one’s image of oneself as virtuous,
just, glorious, progressive, and so on—and argues that public apologies fall in the latter category. I
believe, however, that it is not very clear that this is the case in real life. Many public apologies, offered
within divided societies, can be considered acts of shaming. The information about the shameful past
is affirmed and sanctioned as official truth by an official, that is, by the political agent offering the
apology in the name of the community, against the will of (at least) some resisting groups.
 WHEN THE STATE SAYS “SORRY” 209

repentance might not be recognized as an acceptable political trope in all societies

engaging with an unsavory past; consequently, it might alienate at least a part of
the citizenry. As I argue below, appealing to positive feelings of courage or pride
might be a more productive strategy for provoking societal processes of
reflection.
In what follows, I hope to show that, in order to get closer to the kind of
courageous and persuasive act that an apology can—and must—be, we need to
abandon the idea of a shaming “conventional procedure” for political apologies.
I now turn to consider the theoretical resources that the literature on political
judgment offers for better conceiving of the power of apologies.

II. THE POWER OF EXEMPLARY JUDGMENT

Sparked by Hannah Arendt’s work on Kant’s aesthetics,34 a substantial literature
has, in the last few decades, developed on the topic of reflective political
judgment.35 In addition to Kant and Arendt, the literature also draws upon
Aristotle’s famous notion of phronesis36 and Gadamer’s hermeneutics.37 In spite
of their significant theoretical differences, proponents of the turn to judgment
converge on the idea that politics is not a science; against Platonic views, politics
is understood as addressing complex situations where no precise, easily
applicable guidelines are available.38 The literature borrows Kant’s distinction
between determinant judgment (the faculty enabling us to consistently apply
pre-given rules, formulae, and principles to concrete situations), and reflective
judgment (which attempts to derive general principles from particular contexts).
Since all human beings have the capacity to exercise reflective judgment, and
since the validity of such judgments can only be determined inter-subjectively, by
a public that the agent aims to woo into agreement, this faculty is particularly
relevant for scholars of democratic politics.39

34
Immanuel Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2000).
35
Hannah Arendt, Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1982). For a sampling of the literature on judgment triggered by Arendt’s project, see Ronald Beiner,
Political Judgment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983); Alessandro Ferrara, Justice and
Judgment (London: SAGE, 1999); María Pía Lara, Narrating Evil: A Postmetaphysical Theory of
Reflective Judgment (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007); Alessandro Ferrara, The Force of
the Example: Explorations in the Paradigm of Judgment, (New York: Columbia University Press,
2008).
36
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (London: Penguin Books, 2004).
37
Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment; Arendt, Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy;
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd ed. (New York: Crossroad, 1989).
38
For an analysis of the tension between Arendt’s attempt to rescue the vita activa from the
truth-obsessed philosophers and her return to the vita contemplativa in her later writings, see Majid
Yar, “From actor to spectator: Hannah Arendt’s ‘two theories’ of political judgment,” Philosophy and
Social Criticism, 26 (2000), 1–27.
39
For an insightful analysis of the relationship between political judgment and the political
affirmation of freedom see Linda M. G. Zerilli, “‘We feel our freedom’: imagination and judgment in
the thought of Hannah Arendt,” Political Theory, 33 (2005), 158–88.
210 MIHAELA MIHAI

My account of the transformational power of state apologies builds on

Alessandro Ferrara’s theorization of a “first-order good judgment.” However, my
exercise in theoretical appropriation is not limited to Ferrara’s work alone. In
addressing the “self-image objection” to apologies for past injustice, I also draw
upon insights from Ronald Beiner’s reading of Arendt and Gadamer.40
In using reflective judgment as an unexplored source of normativity for the age
of pluralism, Ferrara’s ambition is to provide an alternative to the neo-naturalism
that has flourished well after the linguistic turn in contemporary political
theory.41 While I cannot here examine his overall project, his notion of “oriented
exemplary judgment” is particularly useful for making sense of how apologies
open up avenues for transformation.
Following in Arendt’s footsteps (while departing in considerable respects from
her attempt to recuperate judgment for politics), Ferrara defines an “example” as
a union of the “is” with the “should be.” Calling attention to an exemplary
institution or action allows the public to perceive moments when ideals are
turned into realities. Examples put the public’s moral powers into motion and
provide it with a sense of the possibilities for transformation.42 Examples can be
familiar in the sense that one knows what an example is an example of. Yet
innovative examples cannot be understood by making reference to precedents.
We can only understand their normative weight retrospectively. Innovative
judgment is most clearly present in political revolutions, the founding of new
religions, or groundbreaking works of art.
The force of examples is of utmost importance in politics, due to the fact of
pluralism and the perpetual contestation of multi-vocal principles of justice. By
setting the imagination and other moral powers into motion, exemplary
judgments act as engines of historical change when we have no readily available
formulae, from experience or elsewhere, upon which to draw:
. . . the exemplarity of what is as it should be accounts for much of the change
undergone by our world over time, for the rise of new patterns and the opening of
new paths. Historical change of great magnitude is often spurred by the capacity,
possessed by exemplary figures, actions, and events, to illuminate new ways of
transcending the limitations of what is and expanding the reach of our normative
understandings.43

Ferrara perceives the “inspiringness” of the example as lying entirely within

itself; however, this does not mean that reflective judgment is purely reflective or
idiosyncratic. On the contrary, it is “oriented” by the fulfillment of identities.

40
Beiner, Political Judgment; Beiner and Nedelsky, Judgment, Imagination, and Politics.
41
Ferrara thinks that a certain kind of neo-naturalism—one that appeals to the “facts” of
neurobiology, of the mind, or of social complexity—constitutes the response that contemporary
philosophy has given to the challenge of postmodernism. A more fruitful strategy, in his view, is to
rethink universalism through the paradigm of judgment. See Ferarra, The Force of the Example,
p. 7.
42
Ibid., p. 3.
43
Ibid., p. 4.
 WHEN THE STATE SAYS “SORRY” 211

Exemplary judgment operates within a context of shared truths, without being

restricted to it.44 The idea of a community, within which judgments are
communicated and shared, makes judgment possible both theoretically and
concretely.45 Ferrara claims that judging is one of the most important faculties for
creating and sustaining a political identity. In this sense, his understanding of the
sensus communis is neither identical with Kant’s minimalist naturalism, nor with
the Gadamerian idea of a hermeneutic horizon.46 When we judge, we interpret
ourselves, our historical and current identities, and our social relationships. In the
case of “us, liberal democrats,” this interpretation is guided by the principle of
equal respect and concern for all.47
Within pluralistic democracies, competing reasonable judgments can be
ranked based upon which best fit a shared idea of what “we” could be at our
best.48 When we evaluate “new and as yet unexplored alternatives,” we are
guided by the ideal of equal respect and concern that underlies our
self-understanding as heirs of modernity:
[i]f we wish to talk of general principles such as the principle of equal worth or the
right to demand justification or the discourse principle, or other such principle, as
normative elements whose reach spans beyond our own particular identity, we can
certainly do so. The point is, however, that the role played by them is always best
understood as that of orienting our reflective judgment in the sense of what best
proceeds from our shared truths.49

The validity of exemplary judgment for a community of democratic citizens

depends on inclusiveness: on taking into consideration the positions of as many
individuals as possible. When we communicate our judgment we are trying to

44
Ferrara here follows in the footsteps of Ronald Beiner who, in his pioneering work on judgment,
argued that a plausible account of this political faculty acknowledges both Kant’s formal conception
of judgment and Aristotle’s emphasis on community as the pool of meanings within which judgment
is exercised with the others. See Beiner, Political Judgment.
45
For the distinction between the formal and the substantive dimensions of political judgment, see
Valentina Gueorguieva, “Les deux faces du sens commun,” Canadian Review of Sociology and
Anthropology, 40 (2003), 249–65.
46
Ferrara, The Force of the Example, p. 26, thinks there are two ways of answering the question
“what is the sensus communis?” One is to go the Gadamerian interpretive path; the other is to go the
Kantian minimal naturalist path. Contrary to Gadamer, who sees sensus communis in terms of
context bound and shared horizons of judgments, Kant offers a universalist conception of sensus
communis, grounded in a natural capacity of the human being: the capacity to feel pleasure or
aversion towards certain objects.
47
Ferrara, The Force of the Example, p. 37, makes this point when analyzing Ackerman’s work on
the extraordinary constitutional moments that punctuate American history.
48
The implication being that judgments that move a democratic community committed to moral
egalitarianism towards more inclusiveness shows the community in “a better light” than judgments
that would perpetuate existing discriminatory practices. Judgments that push for greater inclusiveness
can take many forms, depending on the context. Enlarging the protective scope of principles, in terms
of who counts as an object of equal respect and including the interpretive resources of the
marginalized in order to give concrete meaning to equal respect, are two ways of thinking about
inclusion.
49
Ferrara, The Force of the Example, p. 74. Beiner makes the same point when he argues that
interpretation is called for not merely in the reading of texts but also in practical conduct and moral
action. When we judge, we interpret ourselves, our historical identity, and our social relationships.
212 MIHAELA MIHAI

woo the individuals into consenting.50 By engaging their moral powers, and more
precisely their political imagination, exemplary figures, actions and events, can
help the public enlarge its perspective: “[e]xamples orient us in our appraisal of
the meaning of the action not as schemata, but as well-formed works of art do:
namely, as outstanding instances of congruency capable of educating our
discernment by way of exposing us to selective instances of the feeling of the
furtherance of our life.”51
While exemplary judgment does not provide a checklist for its addressees to
follow, it does encourage the development of what Ferrara calls “second-order
reflective judgments” about the validity of the “first-order reflective judgments”
that underlie exemplary or reasonable deeds, decisions, policies, practices, and so
on.52 A good second-order judgment recognizes the originality of a first-order
judgment and accepts the provocation that its exemplarity directs at one’s own
moral powers. A political institution, decision, or action is exemplary, and has
fulfilled its purpose of generating good second-order reflective judgments, to the
extent that it has stimulated citizens’ political imagination so as to provide them
with an enhanced view of the possibilities offered by their communal life. Not
only collective self-reflection, but also concrete measures to remedy injustice, can
result from a successful uptake of good first-order judgment about a past of
injustice.53 Charisma (the personal power to inspire others famously theorized by
Max Weber), rhetoric, and the ability to mobilize are essential ingredients for the
pursuit of this aim:
[w]hat truly mobilizes us . . . is something not only that meets our interests but also
stirs our imagination and carries with it the promise of a ‘promotion, affirmation or
furtherance’ of our political life as well as the idea of a communicability of this
experience. We do not think of something that mobilizes our political enthusiasm as
something that merely meets our preferences: we think that the ‘vision’ enshrined in
that proposal, slogan, objective can potentially promote, affirm, or further
everybody’s life. The ability to mobilize politically rests on the force of the
exemplary to inspire conduct.54

50
Ferrara, The Force of the Example, p. 46.
51
Ibid., p. 61.
52
Ibid., pp. 51–7.
53
Lara, Narrating Evil, makes this argument in her account of the role of judgment in historical
moral learning. Collectively shared memory provides the basis for delineating an institutional
program of redress.
54
Ferrara, The Force of the Example, p. 119. Aristotle adds the goodness of the speaker’s
character, the strength of his arguments, and his skills in engaging the audience’s emotions as
variables determining the success of communicated judgments (Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1356 a). I am here
indebted to Beiner who offers an interesting and persuasive exploration of the connection between
phronesis and rhetoric in Aristotle’s thought. See Beiner, “Judgment and rhetoric,” Political
Judgment, pp. 83–101. From a democratic theory perspective, Simone Chambers provides an account
of deliberative rhetoric that is successful to the extent that it engages the hearer’s capacity for practical
judgment. The opposite of deliberative rhetoric is plebiscitary rhetoric, which aims more at pleasing
and gaining support for a proposal rather than engaging the other. See Simone Chambers, “Rhetoric
and the public sphere: has deliberative democracy abandoned mass democracy?” Political Theory, 37
(2009), 323–50.
 WHEN THE STATE SAYS “SORRY” 213

To achieve this mobilizing effect, the judging agent must make use of the tools of
rhetoric. Scholars of judgment understand rhetoric not as manipulative public
speaking, but as the medium within which judgment operates and within which
the purposes of action are themselves constituted.55 In addressing judgments to
others, one must be aware of the impact one seeks to have on them and must
know the kind of receptivity that can be expected from them.56 Knowing one’s
audience is essential for reaching them and for drawing them to follow in
judgment.
This is especially important when one challenges engrained habits of thought
and practices. The actor imaginatively puts herself against the community and
claims that “we, as a community” can better live up to the guiding principles of
our political identity (if, for example, we acknowledged past injustice and
pledged not to repeat it).57 For dissenting judgments to reach their audience, we
need a speaker who
. . . possesses a certain detachment from the issues being judged, and thus is not
swept up into the immediacy of passion and prejudice that often attends pressing
political issues. And yet he or she must also possess long and rich experience in the
circumstances and context, temporal and spatial, that give to the affairs being
judged their particular shape or contour. We can judge only on the basis of a great
deal of antecedent knowledge, but we can only put this knowledge to work in
freedom from the immediacy of passion or interest. We may be passionately
concerned, but must not be driven by passion; we may be intensely interested in the
complexities of the case, yet we must exercise our freedom of reflection
disinterestedly. Exemplars of judgment do this, and they do it with marvelous
adeptness.58

The exemplar of judgment thus balances the voices of spectator and actor in a
way that resonates with her audience and moves them towards new and
unexplored possibilities.59 It is this kind of contextualized balancing act and
courage that is needed for a controversial apology to trigger a shift in public
attitudes. In what follows, I suggest that, by inviting citizens to re-imagine
themselves as true liberal democrats, committed to avoiding further injustice and

55
Beiner, Political Judgment, pp. 83–9.
56
Lara, Narrating Evil, considers the importance of language and of what she calls “semantic
shocks” in stimulating collective reflection over catastrophes. “Semantic shocks” set our moral
powers into motion by using words in radically novel ways. Examples are Arendt’s “the banality of
evil” and “totalitarianism,” and Levi’s “Musulmann.”
57
Zerilli, “We feel our freedom,” p. 174, shows how Arendt herself left underexplored the power
of imagination as a power that is crucial for breaking the boundaries of identity-based experience and
affirming freedom.
58
Beiner, Political Judgment, p. 163.
59
This double role is essential in responding to those who fear the communitarian pull of theories
of judgment. While the risk of a conservative back-lash is always present, it is not inherently related
to the way good judgment works. The role of the actor is always supposed to be balanced by the role
of the spectator. For a very illuminating account of the dialectic between the positions of the actor and
the spectator, see Mathias Thaler, “Political judgment between paralysis and heroism,” European
Journal of Political Theory, 10 (2011), 225–53.
214 MIHAELA MIHAI

exclusion, an apology can constructively engage those who fear damage to their
collective self-understanding.

III. APOLOGIZING EXEMPLARILY

How should apologies be exemplarily offered when certain sectors of the
population are mobilized against a critical re-examination of the past? How can
they engage those enamored with a glorious vision of history so as to further
liberal democratic ends?
As we have seen, apologies must conform to the core, minimal conditions of
validity widely discussed in the literature: they must publicly and with ceremony
detail the wrongs committed in the past, accept responsibility, and promise
non-repetition. Rigorously documenting the wrongs committed and taking
responsibility for addressing them is necessary for giving victims and their
descendants due recognition, but also for delegitimizing negationist and
revisionist versions of the past.
Yet an apology’s inspirational exemplarity cannot be achieved by limiting the
apology to its core requirements. Beyond these definitional core conditions, the
apology will gain a transformational quality if it pays attention not only to
the obstacles, but also to the normative and political resources, that the context
provides. Clearly, apologies will take different forms in different communities.
However, the literature on judgment provides us with a few guiding ideas
concerning how we should think about such practices so that they can have some
transformational impact. The requirement to occupy the twin roles of actor and
spectator is crucial, in order to ensure a proper balance between reflection
and action. So is the idea of conceiving of good judgments as inclusive
judgments—aiming to woo one’s interlocutors to consent and stimulating their
imagination about a possible alternative future. Anchoring judgments in the
background normative commitments of liberal democracy and thinking of
exemplary judgments as engines of social and political change are two other
elements we must take stock of. Last but not least, the importance of rhetoric,
emotions, timing, non-verbal communication and thoughtful preparation for the
successful uptake by the public cannot be underestimated when considering what
kind of apologies we need in order to deal with the self-image objection. I now
turn to these ideas in order to consider how they might help us shape inspiring
practices of state apologies.
Exemplary apologies can move their audience’s imagination not only towards a
different conception of their history, but also of their present and future. The
apologizer must encourage resisters to step back and join her in the spectator’s
position, to look back on history, and to evaluate its impact on the present
experiences of some citizens. The spectator’s position enables “us” to see the ways
in which “we” have been failing to live up to our cherished liberal democratic
principles of equal respect and concern for all. Yet preventing further abuses also
 WHEN THE STATE SAYS “SORRY” 215

implies taking the position of the actor, who strives to give up his skewed vision of
history and make amends for past injustice. Within divided societies, an apology is
successful if citizens begin to listen to the stories of the formerly excluded and if,
subsequently, they strive to re-found their social relationships in ways that honor
the commitment to equal concern and respect for all.
This brings us to the requirement of inclusiveness. In order to gain democratic
legitimacy and increase their persuasiveness, good apologies, like good judgments,
have to be inclusive. Most importantly, they must convey the message that the
voices of the victims and losers of history must also count as valid normative
sources for our common future.60 However, inclusiveness also requires a serious
dialogical engagement with all counter-arguments. Only if various voices surface
in its text can an apology hope to woo dissenting citizens to agreement. It must
engage all possible objections in a way that goes back to the community’s
pre-existing guiding principles and shows that, in spite of their plurivocality, these
principles require that we firmly reject certain dangerous visions of the past.
In terms of normative resources, she who apologizes on behalf of a partially
dissenting community must aim to persuade them that the past cannot be
“embellished” without at the same time undermining the normative integrity of
“our” democracy. She must convince the resisters that living up to the principles
that define “us” as liberal democrats implies acknowledging wrongs done to
specific groups among “us.” “We” are the best that “we” can be when “we” look
to our fundamental normative commitments and take responsibility for past
suffering. By appealing to “our” liberal democratic norms, the apologizer can
hope to garner the support of her public for an interpretation of those principles
that requires “us” to take a step back from a distorted vision of history and assess
its relationship to our society’s current legitimacy deficits.
What’s more, it must be emphasized that an apology does not close the history
books. On the contrary, it unsettles prematurely closed accounts and paves the
way for the kind of remedial institutional measures that give credibility to the
commitment to recognize the formerly excluded. Compensation, efforts to
eliminate discriminatory policies and laws, and public education regarding equal
respect for all are necessary components of a serious effort to redress harms and
ensure that abuses will be prevented in the future. Should the public statement
remain without follow-up, victims and their descendants are likely to be wronged
a second time.61

60
I follow Celermajer’s argument that exclusion works in two ways: by excluding groups from the
protective scope of a community’s principles, but also by excluding the conceptions of justice of the
marginalized as potential normative sources for the community. Therefore the relevant question here
is: who should be included in what?
61
See, for example, Govier and Verwoerd, “The promise and pitfalls of apology.” Failing to
supplement the apology with measures of redress (be they in the form of substantive or symbolic
compensation) undermines the credibility and the significance of the institutional effort, in terms of
the state’s commitment both to revise the boundaries of democratic membership and engage the
public in a critical debate over the past of injustice.
216 MIHAELA MIHAI

As I have been arguing, the spectator’s evaluative stance must be accompanied

by the actor’s capacity to redress. Skeptics often argue that without
compensation, an apology means nothing; words alone cannot rectify years of
suffering and exclusion. Yet compensation without an apology is also insufficient.
There is something valuable that an official apology offers that compensation
alone cannot. A carefully formulated apology that gives voice to victims, their
descendants, victimizers, the beneficiaries of violence, and the wider society can
provide an important symbolic recognition for victims and provoke critical
reflection on self-congratulatory views of the past. Something important is lost in
the absence of a ceremonial, public, inspiring expression of regret over a past of
state-sponsored abuse.
Pragmatic and formal concerns also affect and shape judgment in important
ways. Good judgment requires one to pay close attention to the complexity of
one’s context, to know one’s public, and to recognize the rhetorical register to
which they are likely to respond. The most effective apologies are preceded by
carefully weighing alternative possibilities and “preparing” the public through
government programs intended to draw its attention and maximize the potential
for a successful uptake (public intellectuals, victims’ groups, and other civil
society organizations often fulfill this function). It is also crucial that the apology
be offered at a time when the issue is prevalent in public debates. In order to
garner as much public support as possible, the audience must be “made ready.”
While different polities perform this task differently, educational programs, art
projects, the building of museums and memorials, and re-writing history manuals
comprise possible avenues for opening the public debate and preparing it for the
apology.
During the ceremony itself, such factors as the profile of the speakers, the use
of vocabulary, the timing, the selection of relevant historical facts and groups of
victims, and the kind of physical gestures that accompany the apology62 are all
critically important in successfully navigating the complex, Janus-faced process
of contemplating and acting upon history. In the context of a partially hostile
environment, claiming to speak on behalf of all citizens requires fine-tuning one’s
discourse. It is only in this manner that an apology can possibly have the
hoped-for impact and stimulate political change:
[i]f the speaker ignores or violates the norms and values of the listeners, the apology
may be judged empty or disingenuous and the speaker’s mandate null. The speaker’s
handling of the mandate from the audience is thus critical to the apology’s
credibility.63

62
For an interesting treatment of the non-verbal elements in an apology’s economy see Michel
Horelt, “Rituals, performances, and misperformances in political apologies: ceremoniality,
theatricality, and audience in the creation of reconciliation events,” Paper presented at the 6th
European Consortium for Political Research General Conference, University of Iceland, August 2011.
63
Villadsen, “Speaking on behalf of others.”
 WHEN THE STATE SAYS “SORRY” 217

She should make it clear that, far from denigrating “us,” an apology puts “us”
in the best possible light: it shows us to be liberal democrats who possess the
courage to own up to a past of atrocity and who reaffirm a commitment to a
principle of equal concern and respect for all. An apology can invite resistant
groups to conceive of honesty about the past as an act of courage, not an
injustice. A powerful appeal to positive feelings of courage, rather than
shame—to pride, rather than repentance—could persuade citizens to see the
apology as a sign of strength, and not one of weakness. Framed this way, the
apology is more likely to resonate with recalcitrant segments of the public.
These suggestions aim to guide institutional agents in undertaking an
exemplary apology;64 they orient us toward possible ways of challenging
problematic habits of thought. Without being a recipe for success, they point to
various dimensions of an exemplary apology that aims to elicit good
second-order judgment in its audience.65
A critic might still object that my account of an exemplary apology is
insufficient for understanding the relationship between first- and second-order
judgments and how citizens follow in judgment. I have outlined a few ideas about
how such political acts might gain in exemplarity and persuasiveness. However,
given that I have argued that a standardized procedure for apologies fails to
capture the richness of resources that the state must mobilize to apologize in an
exemplary way, and that such resources change from one polity to the next, I am
not in a position to offer more precise criteria for exemplary apologies, nor can
I describe the mechanisms through which the message of the apology are
appropriated.66 It is up to political actors, embedded in real contexts, to reflect
and offer inspiring apologies that can garner the support of their citizens. At
most, the theorist can point to the fact that, to the extent that there is an uptake
of the message the apology seeks to transmit (that is, to the extent that resisters
step back and take pause before expressing outrage at the apology’s “demeaning”
nature, and to the extent that fewer and fewer voices are raised in defense of a
skewed vision of the past), the apologizer has achieved her purpose of stimulating
good second-order judgment.

64
Onora O’Neill, “The power of example,” Philosophy, 61 (1986), 5–29, argues that while
reflective judgment could benefit from a certain set of strategies (enlarging one’s mentality, discussing
others’ appraisals, and revising our own), these do not determine our judgment. Guided by such
strategies, we make decisions and, in making decisions, we reveal who we are.
65
It must have become clear by now that the British apology was far from attaining an exemplary
quality.
66
This point marks the first step towards addressing a worry that the scholar of judgment might
have: how can subsequent apologies maintain their exemplarity and avoid becoming flat and
stereotypical? Does replication weaken exemplarity? In my view, beyond a number of basic elements
that make an act recognizable as an apology—and that need to be replicated—the meaning and
quality of apology can only be defined from within the particularity of each situation. It is the sum
of contextual resources that the apologizer can mobilize—the normative and interpretive frameworks,
the repertoire of social rituals, and so on—that allow each act of apology to display exemplarity. I
thank Alessandro Ferrara for bringing this aspect of the argument to my attention.
218 MIHAELA MIHAI

State-sponsored expressions of regret will inevitably fail to reach all those

who contested its value and disagreement will persist. Surely, it would be absurd
to expect a democratic consensus in support of an apology: disagreement is at
the core of democratic politics. There is clearly an ineliminable interpretive
dimension to memory. However, some ways of remembering must be unmasked
as blatant distortions of history that unacceptably condone past violations of
equal concern and respect for all. Discrediting such views at the institutional
level is both a matter of justice for the victims and their descendants and a
matter of prudence: complacency and self-deceiving conceptions of history limit
the range of possible futures by encouraging the reproduction of problematic
attitudes and practices.67 When the public debate is hijacked by revisionists with
their own undemocratic agendas, an exemplary intervention is required to stir
the public into processes of reckoning with the past. Given good timing and
antecedent preparations, a state apology could hence disrupt self-righteous
indignation and could contribute to processes of democratic political
socialization.
To sum up, an apology’s democratic legitimacy depends not only on the
political and intellectual elites’ success in garnering public support before the
apology is offered, but also in the act’s capacity to unsettle undemocratic
attitudes and self-serving visions of the past post-factum. In other words, its
legitimacy is both a function of building initial support and successful uptake by
the apology’s addressees. To the extent that it garners citizens’ support for the
idea that by affirming discontinuity from the past—and not by cherishing a
distorted vision thereof—we live up to the principles that give shape to our liberal
democracy, the apology contributes to the cultivation of democratic attitudes.
When citizens follow in judgment and let themselves be persuaded about the need
to courageously acknowledge past injustice, they make good second-order
judgments.68 Such a successful uptake will also hopefully prevent similar
violations from being repeated.69

67
Lara, Narrating Evil, and Blustein, The Moral Demands of Memory, come to the same
conclusion, though from different directions.
68
A critic might reasonably ask the following question: what about those victims who no longer
inhabit the territory of the victimizer state? Given that the logic of discrimination works in similar
ways across groups (dehumanization, infantilization, demonization, and so on), and that
undemocratic attitudes reproduce themselves no matter where the targeted group currently is, using
apologies to provoke shifts in the public culture is crucial. That is to say, should the victims and their
descendants no longer inhabit the territory where the abuses were committed, an apology is still
required. In order to recognize their suffering and promote deterrence, it is important to acknowledge
the abuses committed, disrupt discriminatory habits of thought, and challenge a distorted image of
one’s history.
69
When the apology is offered by a democratically elected leader before a consenting parliament,
it gains an additional layer of democratic legitimacy. Canada’s apology to its First Nations for the
residential school system constitutes a particularly illuminating example: the apology was offered by
the prime minister and was supported by the leaders of all parties in parliament.
 WHEN THE STATE SAYS “SORRY” 219

IV. ADDRESSING TWO CRITICISMS

I have been arguing that she who apologizes on behalf of a group must assume
the position of both a spectator of history—evaluating the political circumstances
with which she is presented—and an agent thereof—selecting the type of
arguments and decisions that are most likely to persuade citizens to accept the
provocation to reflection. In response to inspiring, historical judgments
individuals can learn to take responsibility for who they are and for who they
want to become in the future, institutionally and from the point of view of their
public culture.70 It is time now to address two potential criticisms that might be
raised against the argument introduced in the previous sections.
First, where are we to find the political agents motivated to perform such
exemplary deeds of redress? Where are the noble legislators who come to shape
the people into a better “we”? The account presented above may appear to
indulge in naïve idealism and romanticism about political power-holders.
Apology skeptics have pointed to the frequently strategic motivations of such
agents, to the fact that they tend to apologize when it is convenient to do so.
International attention and pressure, as well as the desire to entrench their own
power by gaining the favor of human rights monitoring agencies and of certain
sectors of the electorate, are perceived as moving political actors to express regret
over a past of discrimination and violence.
While strategic considerations clearly lie behind public acts of state apologies,
they are not alone in motivating decision-makers to take action. Empirical
research suggests that while relevant, strategic concerns cannot fully explain the
decision to apologize. On the contrary, strong normative commitment by liberal
elites has, most of the time, determined the decision in favor of an apology, even
in contexts where no clear advantages would be derived from apologizing.71 It is
what is frequently—and incorrectly—called “liberal guilt” that moves
decision-makers to initiate redress measures or to respond to claims for redress.
Yet empirical evidence cannot stand in place of an argument. The central point is
this: since we are not addressing interpersonal relations, and since the state does
not always speak through the mouth of the direct perpetrators, an apology
can aspire to have a transformational effect on its public to the extent that its text
and ceremony communicate a concern for the plight of those formerly
disenfranchised and their descendants. This is why I reject the view that apologies
that are not offered for “pure justice reasons” will fail to achieve their ends.
Moreover, I argue that it would be absurd to expect remorse and guilt as proof
of the sincerity—that is, non-strategic motivation—of state officials. The absence

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“Without examples or exemplars to reflect on we could not even begin to imagine what it would
be to exercise such a faculty. We ourselves are schooled in the exercise of this faculty by observing the
exemplary performances of others. We learn by example.” Beiner, Political Judgment, p. 163.
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Nobles, The Politics of Official Apologies.
220 MIHAELA MIHAI

of emotions (repentance, guilt, and so on), and the presence of strategic concerns
in the motivation to say “sorry,” in no way compromise the validity of good
political judgment.
A related objection takes issue with the state-centered nature of my normative
recommendations. Why should we expect the state to transform undemocratic
habits of thought and social practices? This is a complex question that touches
upon a variety of issues. First, since the state and its agents perpetrated the
wrongs that are the object of apology, it is they who should apologize to the
victims and/or their descendants. If we agree that the state is an institution
that exists continuously in time and that bears responsibility, it is only proper
that it should issue the official “sorry.” This does not exclude the necessity that
other, non-state organizations apologize for their participation in systematic
discrimination and abuse. Nor does it delegitimize civil society’s attempts to
incite a revision of a country’s founding myths and self-understandings. Secondly,
we should not discount the important symbolic weight and reach of a state
apology, even in an age of globalization and curtailed sovereignty. Performed
exemplarily, an official “sorry” for a wrong committed against members of our
own society can hope to stir our imagination in a way that an apology by a
non-representative agency cannot. This does not suggest that we should ignore
the fact that it is usually organized by victims’ groups and intellectuals, who often
constitute the main driving forces behind the opening of a public debate over the
need to offer an apology. As I argued earlier, in conjunction with governmental
memorialization projects, such political mobilization can help prepare the ground
for a change in political attitudes. Yet, due to their important symbolic power,
representative state actors are in a particularly important position to launch an
invitation to re-think what “we liberal democrats” can be at our best.
To conclude, this article has argued that, in addressing the issue of state
apology for prior injustice, we need not limit our analysis to the desired impact
of such gestures on the victims and their descendants. We need also to look into
the ways in which they might trigger changes in the broader political culture. By
offering an account of official apologies as exemplary political judgments, I hope
to have shown how we might rethink state expressions of regret in view of
recognizing their more complex role in catalyzing shifts in the public culture of
democratic, yet imperfectly just, societies.