This issue went to press almost exactly four years after the death of Charles Gillespie, in whose honor I wish to dedicate the lustration symposium. A political scientist at the University of Wisconsin with a broad range of comparative interests, Charlie's major work chronicled the reemergence of democracy in Uruguay. He would doubtless have been a contributor to this issue were he still alive, and there were many times during the course of working on it when I wished I could have asked for his advice. In addition to his passion for democracy, I remember Charlie for his learning and his humor, both of which he wore with an elegant English grace. Throughout his long illness, he never lost his appreciation for the silly; his life was proof that stoicism and courage need not be cold virtues, and the world is a much poorer place in his absence.

The policy of lustration is set in the context of responses to abuses of power by previous regimes. Using examples from three recent forms of social reconstruction (in Latin America, the former communist states, and South Africa), the author reviews the “justice in transition” debate. How do societies going through democratization confront the human rights violations committed by the previous regime? Five aspects of this debate are reviewed: (1) truth: establishing and confronting the knowledge of what happened in the past; (2) justice: making offenders accountable for their past violations through three possible methods: punishment through the criminal law, compensation and restitution, and mass disqualification such as lustration; (3) impunity: giving amnesty to previous offenders; (4) expiation; and (5) reconciliation and reconstruction. A concluding discussion raises the implications of the subject for the study of time and social control.

The author looks at one component of transitions to democracy: the strategies successor elites develop to deal with injustices committed by the previous, authoritarian regime. He compares post-transition justice in Belgium, France, and The Netherlands after World War II and in Eastem Europe after the fall of communism. He discusses several factors that influence policy choices. Among the most influenrial are the legacy of the past regime, the internutwnal legal context at the time of the passage to democracy, and the mode of transition and its ensuing impact on the balance of power between the old and the new order.

In recent years, Latin American countries have sought to come to terms with prior periods of widespread human rights violations, relying increasingly on investigatory commissions. Investigatory efforts have been undertaken by democratically elected governments that replaced military dictatorships, by UN-sponsored commissions as part of a UN-mediated peace process, and by national human rights commissioners. This article examines truth commissions in Chile and El Salvador, an investigatory effort in Honduras, and a proposed commission in Guatemala. It compares the achievements and limitations of these commissions within the political constraints and institutional reality of each country, focusing on four major goals: the effort to create an authoritative account of the past; vindication of victims; recommendations for legislative, structural, or other changes to avoid repetition of past abuses; and establishing accountability or the identity of perpetrators.

This article focuses on discourses conducted in Central/East European countries, and Poland in particular, with respect to the issue of participation of former secret agents in the new power structures. It exposes the reader to the range, style, content, and variety of lustration discourses. It explores their relevance for the ongoing power struggle, paying special attention to their focus on and contribution to the processes of construction and control of truth about the past.

Given that the procedural and legal-institutional issues occupy a marginal place in the debate, it is inferred that the main sources of discord are more ideological and political than legal. The two main strains within the global lustration discourse are identified as: (1) dystopian discourses that paint a frightful picture of a lustrated society and imply that the upheaval of lustration would ruin the chance for democratic evolution, and (2) affirmative discourses that assert the need for lustration and portray the refusal to implement it as a barrier to successful transition to democracy. The article elaborates on assumptions and beliefs, which tend to link the dystopian opposition to lustration with the left-wing political affiliation or self-identification and the affirmative discourse with the right-wing orientation.

Almost from the start of South Africa's transition to democracy in the 1990s, the issue arose of how those both within the National Party government and from the opposition who had committed human rights abuses would be treated. Like many other countries undergoing democratic regime change, South Africa's endeavors to exorcise the demons of its past while ensuring stability have depended and continue to depend to a certain extent on the delicate choice between truth telling and retribution, a choice, in turn, closely tied to the process of democratization and to the distibution of power within the body that led the change. The authors ask how the nature of the South African transition and the character of the transitional authority affected the treatment of past abuses. They further examine the way the transitional authorities balanced retribution and truth telling and the consequences of their actions for the stability of the new democracy.

On 20 April 1994, in Versailles France, Paul Touvier was convicted of complicity to commit crimes against humanity for his role in the killing of seven Jews during World War II. At the time of the crime Touvier was an oficer of the Milice, a special military force established to combat the Resistance and other enemies of the Vichy government. When Touvier's trial was finally held in spring 1994, it was the subject of enormous media attention in France and became the vehicle for a debate on the legitimacy and activities of the Vichy Regime, becoming popularly identified as a trial of the Vichy government. This essay, after tracing the historical and legal background of Touvier's prosecution, concludes that Touvier's conviction some 50 years after his crime, was legally and morally justified. Touvier's evasion of the law was remedied; his victims and their descendants were honored; the Nuremberg principles were resurrected and applied. The author is skeptical, however, about using his trial to reexamine the Vichy period and suggests that its attempted transformation by the media into an event that would produce an authoritative resolution of the various public discourses concerning Vichy France was and could only have been a disappointment.

When in East Germany communist rule broke down, West Germans stood ready to take over. The end of communism also meant the end of the German Democratic Republic state; unification came as unconditional surrender to the western Federal Republic of Germany. The purge of the former regime's leaders therefore became intertwined with the West German takeover. With the takeover came Western politicians, managers, and professionals, forcing East Germans to compete fur jobs and influence. Opportunistic strategies with regard to the future buildup thus mixed with the desires for revenge and justice toward those responsible for the communist past. In this article I focus especially on the screening of the East German legal profession for reemployment in the unified Germany. In the West German tradition the legal profession forms the core of the civil services. In communist states lawyers had remained relatively marginal to the center of political power. Thus Western perceptions of the role of law account for the demise of the East German legal profession. That demise is taking place at a time when the Western regime is in need of many more legally trained people than ever worked in East Germany.

One part of building a new constitution after wars, revolutions, civil wars, or dramatic regime changes is to draw a cultural boundary in time, declaring various aspects of the old regime illegitimate and various legalities and constitutional principles of the new regime legitimate. One part of that process, in turn, is to decide how the new regime should treat the guilt of individuals for terror, collaboration, betrayal of information to the regime, and the like. This essay argues that such lustration processes should be a very minor part of the definition of the meaning of the pat, and even less of a part of building social supports under the new constitution. It also assesses the contributions on lustration in this issue in light of this view of what place lustration should play in the construction of democratic constitutions after authoritarian regimes.