Apologies in International Politics
Michaela Mattes, Professor
Political Science
Closed. This professor is continuing with Fall 2024 apprentices on this project; no new apprentices needed for Spring 2025.
Throughout history countries have done terrible things to one another: genocide, war crimes, forced displacements etc. Apologizing for past wrongs was very rare before the 1990s and has become only slightly more common. Interestingly, there is a lot of variation in whether a country apologizes, when it does so, the form the apology takes, and how the apology is received. Germany’s first significant public gesture of remorse after World War II came in 1970 and was focused on Poland; the German government only apologized to the Czech Republic in 1997 and only in the context of a reciprocal statement by the Czechs; and Germany never apologized to Britain for the bombing of London. While Germany’s apologies are considered sincere by most, Japan’s statements have been viewed with skepticism by its victims. Many other countries have uttered either no apology for past wrongs (e.g. Turkey for the Armenian Genocide or Russia for the occupation of the Baltic states) or have done so late and only reluctantly (e.g. France for crimes in Algeria).
This project seeks to investigate who apologizes to whom, when, and how. While there is significant research on individual cases of apologies and reparations, we currently do not have a good understanding of the determinants and consequences of international apologies more broadly. In order to develop a systematic theoretical and empirical model of international apologies, this project collects data on the timing, wording, and context of apologies for atrocities committed between 1900-2015.
Role: Undergraduate research apprentices will contribute to the project in two ways:
1) Identify instances in which countries apologized for violations of the laws of war in interstate war, occupations of sovereign territory, colonial crimes, or the Holocaust. We already have an extensive list of these apologies and have coded most of them, but we want to make sure that we are not missing important cases. To check for missing cases, undergraduate researchers will do extensive online searches for apologies between pairs of violators and victims.
2) Code information on the context, timing, and nature of international apologies. Important details include the rank of the official who offered the apology, the specificity of the apology (whether crimes and victims are clearly mentioned), and the depth of the apology (clear admission of guilt, remorse, and promise to never do this again).
Undergraduate research assistants will learn about historical atrocities and the ways that states, both aggressors and victims, have dealt (or not dealt) with the past and how this affects their current relations. Students will also learn about how to collect and process observational data that can then be used for statistical analysis.
Qualifications: These tasks will entail online research on apology cases. Finding information on apologies, and, particularly, locating the apology text itself, can be difficult. So undergraduate research assistants should be willing to show some tenacity in tracking down very specific information about particular historical cases. Undergraduate research assistants should also be systematic and willing to follow detailed coding rules. More generally, an interest in reading historical material and learning more about international apologies is desirable.
Hours: 6-8 hrs
Social Sciences