Apologies and Forgiveness

Abstract Following conflict and injustice, leaders of formerly antagonistic groups sometimes apologize for the harms that their groups perpetrated. For example, in 2002 the Irish Republican Army (IRA) apologized for slaying non–enemy combatants in their violent campaign for Irish independence. Government leaders occasionally apologize decades and even centuries after an injustice. Recently, for example, the Canadian and Australian governments apologized for abuse of Aboriginal populations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, seven American states apologized for their role in transatlantic slavery, and British prime minister Tony Blair apologized for the Irish Potato Famine. Some scholars argue that apologies, even belated ones, help heal the wounds of the past and promote reconciliation. Others oppose government apologies, arguing that they are ineffective and sometimes harmful. Politicians apologize for many kinds of transgressions, but no apologies generate the same degree of controversy as those for historical injustices. Below, we summarize the existing research on apologies, focusing on political apologies for historical injustices.