Meaningless gestures or pathway to healing and reconciliation? Comparing the perspectives on political apologies in victim and non-victim communities in El Salvador, the Republic of Korea and the United Kingdom

Thia Sagherian-Dickey (Lead / Corresponding author), Juliette Schaafsma (Lead / Corresponding author), Marieke Zoodsma, Ha Jung Cho, Iwan Dinnick, Jimin Kim, Masi Noor, Rhiannon N. Turner, María Sol Yáñez de la Cruz

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)
28 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Political apologies have been theorized to play an important role in healing and reconciliation processes in post-conflict settings. Whether they actually fulfil this function, however, remains unclear as the voices and perspectives of victim communities have largely been underrepresented in research. To address this, we examined the role of apologies that were offered for the El Mozote massacre (El Salvador), the Jeju 4.3 massacres (Republic of Korea) and Bloody Sunday (United Kingdom), according to members of these communities and the broader public. Although we anticipated that victim community members should find the apology more valuable and meaningful and should, therefore, be more positive about its role in healing and reconciliation processes, we found that this varies across countries. This variation could be explained by people's trust in the country's institutions. Across the samples, we found that the apology was seen as a relatively important gesture. For the apology to be perceived as impactful, however, it had to be seen as a meaningful (i.e. sincere) gesture. Our findings suggest that apologies have a role to play in the aftermath of human rights violations, but that it is essential to take the broader context into account.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)414-430
Number of pages17
JournalBritish Journal of Social Psychology
Volume62
Issue number1
Early online date1 Jul 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 6 Jan 2023

Keywords

  • apologies
  • healing
  • human rights violations
  • reconciliation
  • victim communities

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Social Psychology

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