NCJ Number
154292
Journal
European Journal of Crime, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Volume: 2 Issue: 2 Dated: (1994) Pages: 120-140
Date Published
1994
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This article seeks to identify some of the factors which shape the choices successor elites make after the introduction or reintroduction of democracy. The author compares Belgium, France, and Holland at the end of World War II with Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia of the post-communist era.
Abstract
Some of the past-oriented goals of the new regime, the intended purposes of retrospective justice, serve to heal the wounds, to repair the private and public damage which the antecedent regime provoked. Coming to terms with the past, seeing that justice is done, can involve sanctions both criminal (execution, detention, expulsion) and administrative (restriction of access to public goods, such as civil service jobs or pensions). An important future-oriented goal is the consolidation of the new regime, the attainment of legitimacy, the capacity to secure loyalty and confidence and keep alive the conviction that the political institutions are trustworthy. Major dilemmas facing newly arrived democratic elites include keeping democracy and the rule of law undamaged, and tactical decisions, such as the prolonged exile of the defeated. The authors conclude that their comparative analysis of Belgium, France and Holland on the one hand, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland on the other demonstrates that the freedom of action of post-authoritarian elites is rather limited, mostly a devil's choice. Footnotes