Settling accounts: violence, justice, and accountability in postsocialist Europe PDF
Preview Settling accounts: violence, justice, and accountability in postsocialist Europe
SETTLING ACCOUNTS E D I T O R S SherryB.Ortner,NicholasB.Dirks,GeoffEley PRINCETON STUDIES IN CULTURE /POWER/ HISTORY SETTLING ACCOUNTS VIOLENCE, JUSTICE, AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN POSTSOCIALIST EUROPE JOHN BORNEMAN PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY Copyright(cid:211) 1997byPrincetonUniversityPress PublishedbyPrincetonUniversityPress,41WilliamStreet, Princeton,NewJersey08540 IntheUnitedKingdom:PrincetonUniversityPress, Chichester,WestSussex AllRightsReserved LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Borneman,John,1952– Settlingaccounts:violence,justice,andaccountabilityin postsocialistEurope/JohnBorneman. p. cm.—(Princetonstudiesinculture/power/history) Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN0-691-01682-8(cloth:alk.paper) ISBN0-691-01681-X(pbk.:alk.paper) 1.Post-communism—Europe,Eastern. 2.Ruleoflaw—Europe, Eastern. 3.Reparation—Europe,Eastern. 4.Politicalcrimes andoffenses—Europe,Eastern. 5.Retribution. 6.Social justice—Europe,Eastern. 7.Europe,Eastern—Socialpolicy. 8.Europe,Eastern—Politicsandgovernment—1989– I.Title.II.Series. HN380.7.A8B671997 306.2¢0947—dc21 97-12041 CIP ThisbookhasbeencomposedinPalatino PrincetonUniversityPressbooksareprinted onacid-freepaperandmeettheguidelines forpermanenceanddurabilityoftheCommittee onProductionGuidelinesforBookLongevity oftheCouncilonLibraryResources http://pup.princeton.edu PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 (pbk.) Contents Preface vii Acknowledgments xiii PARTONE:FRAMING,COMPARING,HISTORICIZING 1 Chapter1 FramingtheRuleofLawinEast-CentralEurope 3 AccountabilityandRetributiveJustice 3 ComparisonofRegimeTransformations 8 JusticeandPoliticalTheory 10 TheStudyofLegalReformandAnthropology 16 Violence,Accountability,Dignity 20 Chapter2 Comparing:Decommunization—Recommunization—Reform? 26 DecommunizationandRecommunization 26 SkepticalDescriptionsofReform 28 Coda 39 Chapter3 HistoricizingtheRuleofLaw 40 TheWesternLegalTradition 41 ComparisonofNationalTraditions:England,France,Germany 45 ArchitecturalSymbolismofJusticeinBerlin 47 TheTwoGermanysduringtheColdWar 50 PARTTWO:ETHNOGRAPHYOFCRIMINALITY 57 Chapter4 TheInvocationoftheRechtsstaatinEastGermany: GovernmentalandUnificationCriminality 59 TheInvocation 59 CreationofCriminalCategoriesandInvestigationofCrime: ZERV1—UnificationCriminality 63 CreationofCriminalCategoriesandInvestigationofCrime: ZERV2—GovernmentalCriminality 66 TheInvestigation 71 TransformingMisfortuneintoInjustice:TheRoleof ArchivesandEvidence 72 vi CONTENTS ReckoningwiththeCriminalPast:ZERVandthe Gauck-Authority 75 PreliminaryProceedings(Zwischenverfahren) 78 TheTrial(Hauptverfahren) 78 Chapter5 AccountabilityonTrial 80 Extortion:ProfessorDr.Vogel 81 TheIndictment 84 TheRighttoLeaveandColdWarOrder 86 Zapff’sCottage 90 Postscript 94 PARTTHREE:ETHNOGRAPHYOFVINDICATION 97 Chapter6 DemocraticAccountability:Results,Evaluations, Ramifications 99 Chapter7 JusticeandDignity:Victims,Vindication,and Accountability 111 DignityandRestitutiveJustice 111 HistoryofVindicationafter1989 113 TheCommissionofVindicationforRadioandTelevision 118 CaseStudyofVindicationCommissionProceedings 121 EvaluationsoftheVindicationCommission 128 Conclusion 133 PARTFOUR:LEGITIMACY 137 Chapter8 TheRuleofLawandtheState:Violence,Justice,and Legitimacy 139 Type1:SomeRetributiveJustice 145 Type2:LittleRetributiveJustice 155 Type3:ExtensiveRetributiveJustice 160 Conclusion 165 Notes 167 Bibliography 177 Index 187 NameIndex 195 Preface I BEGAN the research for Settling Accounts on a trip to Berlin in March 1990. Funded by the German Marshall Fund, I went as an anthropol- ogist to observe the first free, multiparty elections in East Germany since1946.IhadjustfinishedastudyofeverydaylifeduringtheCold War in the divided Berlin, and I was a few months away from com- pletingabookaboutGermany’sfirststepstowardnationalunification. Inmysearchforthekeyissuesintheradicaltransformationsofculture, society, and politics, I was struck by publicdemands,often bordering onhysteria,forjustice.Thesedemandsrangedfromrequestsforreha- bilitation of one’s name or reputation to calls for the prosecution of membersoftheoldelite.Initiallytheyhadlittletodowithfightsover the return or redistribution of property, which has since occupied the attention of so many intellectuals. Much public attention was focused on what legal theorists call “moral injuries”—deeds, like attempted murder,thatdidnotresultinactualharmbutwerenonethelesswrong. People seemed united that the “actually existing socialist” regimes were illegitimate and that their elites had behaved unethically, if not criminally.Inthistransformativemoment,theburningissuesinpublic discourse, not only in East Germany but throughout much of East- Central Europe, became: how and for what should people be held ac- countable,andhowcouldpastwrongsbesetright?Itappearedthatthe immediatelegitimacyofthenewpostsocialiststatesoftheformerEast bloc rested largely on formulating adequate responses to what all agreed were intractable problems of rectifying perceived injustice un- der the old regimes. Most of this book is devoted to evaluating the performanceofthesenewstatesinreckoningwiththeircriminalpasts in the first five years after the revolutionary change of regimes. This reckoninghasinvolvedanattempttoinvoke theprinciplesoftherule oflaw. Now,asIclosethisstudy,therelevanceoftheinitialtopicthatinter- ested me is no longer limitedto the losers of the Cold War, to the for- mer socialist regimes of East and Central Europe. From Western Eu- ropetoLatinAmericatoAsia,eventheregimesofthecapitalistvictors andtheirallieshavebeenunsettledbydemandsforaccountabilityand justice. An extraordinary anti-Mafia campaign continues to shake the foundationsofpostwarItalianpoliticalculture;ChileanandArgentin- ian officers responsible for terrorizing and killing political opponents have been tried and imprisoned; two past presidents of South Korea viii PREFACE were recently convicted on charges of ordering a massacre. Although itisunlikelythatmanyofthesecampaignswillresultinconvictionsor imprisonment (or that general amnesties will be declared, as has al- readyhappenedinChileandArgentina),theperformativeeffectofthe state’s effort should not be ignored. What began quite narrowly as a studyofthetransformationofEastblocsocialistregimesnowappears relevantoutsidetheEuropeancontext.Indeed,itisperhapsthebegin- ningof aparticularkindofHistory. Wearewitnessingaworldmove- mentforretributivejustice:theconvictionofwrongdoersandtheresto- rationofthedignityofvictims. Unlikedistributivejustice,whichisconcernedwithgivingeachhis/ her proper share, or corrective justice, which is intent on rectifying harms, retributive justice deals primarily with moral injuries, wrongs that frequently do not result inmaterial injuryor harm.In current us- age, retribution has come to be associated solely with punishment for offenses,yetetymologicallythemeaningofthewordincludesreward- ingforgooddeeds.Onlyinthecourseofthetwentiethcenturyhasthe meaningofretributionbeenreducedtoamanifestationofrevengemo- tives.Upuntilthelate-nineteenthcentury,ithasalwaysbeenpartofa settling of accounts that necessarily both punishes evil and rewards good. Therelevanceofretributivejusticeinthecontemporarycontextgoes far beyond the fate of individual criminals and victims; its increasing importanceispartofaglobalritualpurificationofthecenterofpolitical regimesthat seek democraticlegitimacy.Notallstates,ofcourse,seek democratic legitimacy, and those which fail, despite positive inten- tions,toachievedemocraticpoliticalformwilllikelyturntodictatorial means of assuring their domination. For them, retributive justice will likely not bejusticeat all.Butforthose thatdoseekdemocratic legiti- macy, only with this purification can the “rule of law” be successfully invoked.Onlywithanappealtoprinciplesembodiedinpublic“ruleby law”insteadofinpersonal“rulebymen”canthesenewstatesinEast- Central Europe establish democratic legitimacy. The invocation of the ruleoflawisnotaone-shotinjectionofjusticeintoformerstatesocial- ist settings, a return of errant governments to political normality; re- gimepurificationisnecessarilyaperiodicprocess. To invoke the rule of law has always meant different things to dif- ferent people. Some analysts see it as a set of procedures to protect individualsfromarbitraryrule,whileothersviewitastheprogressive march of reason and rationality. The former tend to focus on human rightsandpoliticalliberties,thelatteroncontractandpropertyrights. Historicallythetwoperspectiveshavebeendifficulttodisentanglethe- oretically and empirically, partly because private property rights and PREFACE ix political liberties coexist everywhere in a sometimes complementary, sometimes antagonistic relationship. The distinctive claims and inter- connectednessofthe twoperspectiveswasillustratedagainin1989in TiananmenSquarebyChinesedemonstrators,whotooktheruleoflaw tomeanpoliticallibertiesandfreedoms—whereasDengXiaopingand othermembersofthepoliticalelitesawitastheimportationofforeign, Western individualism. Subsequently many of these demonstrators havereportedlybecomecapitalists,joiningthepoliticaleliteinitspro- growth economic goals. Yet in order to reach these economic goals, Westernbanksandlendinginstitutionshaveforcedtheelitetoenact,if only formally, contract law—henceinvoking atleastsomebasictenets oftheruleoflaw.Thenewlegislationwillundoubtedlyhaveaneffect onpoliticallibertiesandonprinciplesofaccountability.Preciselywhat thateffectwillberemainstobeseen. This study emphasizes another, frequently neglected aspect of the rule of law: its principles of accountability, which, I maintain, are in- trinsictothelegitimationofdemocraticstatesandtheoreticallypriorto conceptions of human and property rights. In this, it deviates from mostcontemporaryperspectivesontheruleoflaw.Iam,however,not alone in my focus on accountability. In literary criticism, for example, Derrida-inspireddeconstruction hasbeenconcernedwithlocating the authority of representation. Hence it has focusedlargely on questions about “from where” one speaks or writes in order to hold authorities accountable for their representations. In the history of science, ques- tionsaboutmedicalethics,theroleofprofitsindrugresearchanduse, and the regulation of biogenetic experiments have become central. Whatunitesthehumanitiesandsocialsciencestodayisafundamental concernwithrenewingandreinvigorating principlesofaccountability in a fluid and decentered international order. I hope that sucha focus willalsobecomeacentralconcernoflegalandpoliticalstudies. My own views on law have changed considerably in the course of my research for this book. When I began, I thought it was presump- tuousto assumethatthediscreditedsocialiststatesneededtheruleof law in order to reestablish their legitimacy. To be sure, most of these statesseemedtohavelosttheirmonopolyonthelegitimateuseofvio- lence,butIremainedunconvincedthatinvokingtheruleoflawwould bring about a more peaceful public order. Moreover, the sudden at- tempt to install a newsystemof formal procedures and rulesentailed arejectionoftheentiresystemofsocialistlegality,notonlyofitsrules butalsofrequentlyofthepeoplerepresentingandenforcingthemtout court, without consideration of individual responsibility. In any case, mostsocialtheoristsatthattimewerenottalkingabouttheruleoflaw andretributivejusticebutaboutconstitutions,propertyrights,andthe x PREFACE extension of Western markets into East-Central Europe. Their interest in the installation of specific institutional arrangements, I thought, wouldmeetthesamefateasotherattemptstoinsertaglobalideology, such as the fate of “development” in the Third World: it would fail, even measured by its own terms, but not without leaving permanent tracesofaninternationalproperty regime.Fiveyearslater,Ihavecon- cluded that one must distinguish between the installation of institu- tionalarrangementsandinvocationoftheprinciplesoftheruleoflaw; thisinvocationisnotonlydesirablebutalsoaprerequisiteforinternal andexternallegitimacy. Inowthinkthatthisinvocationisnotonlypartofaglobalideology that is spreading to the Eastbloc,butthat the ruleof lawalsoconsists ofritual performancessuchastrialsforwrongdoersandpublicvindi- cations.Theseperformancesareinfacttransnationalpracticesandpro- cesses,andtheyareintrinsictomaintainingthelegitimacyofallstates that claim democratic form. While the principles of the rule of law sharewithotherjuraltypesafunctionofritualpurification—establish- ingmoralprinciplesthroughtheidentificationofwrongdoingandthe rightingofwrong—theruleoflawhasprovenitselftobeasuperiorset ofsuchprinciples.Contrarytomanypunditswhoclaimthateconomic growth or acts of reconciliation alone will legitimate the transformed East bloc states or quell the violence that has accompaniedthe transi- tions, I conclude that failure to rectify past injustices will undermine thelegitimacyofnewstates.Inowthinkthatdemocraticstatesrequire the reiteration ofprinciplesofaccountabilitytoreestablishthemselves asmoralauthoritiesthatcanclaimtorepresententirecommunities. Mostanthropologicalstudiesoflegalregimescloselyfollowtheemic conceptionsofthoseregimes(orofscholarsoreliteswithinthem)and assume the autonomy of either folk or national legal categories and cultures. The little ethnographic research on law during the transfor- mation of socialist legal regimes has also focused on specific conflicts within national legal cultures—assumed to be separate, holistic, and bounded—without adequately addressing the increasing internation- ality of all conflictandculture.I amarguing against extending sucha cultural relativism, however well intentioned, to the analysis of legal systems,andseekinsteadanencounterbetweentheempiricaldetailof howthe principlesof the ruleof lawwork inspecificplacesandwhat theirclaimsaretouniversalvalidity. SettlingAccountsthereforepresentsitselfasablurredgenre:parteth- nographyofritualpurificationundertheruleoflawintheformerEast Germany, part history of a global legal transformation, part essay in comparative political-legal anthropology, part moral philosophy. In
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