Settling Accounts at the End of History: A Nonideal Approach to State Apologies

• Author: Jasper Friedrich
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00905917211065064
• Published date: 01 October 2022
• Date: 01 October 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/00905917211065064

Political Theory

2022, Vol. 50(5) 700 –722

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DOI: 10.1177/00905917211065064

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Article

Settling Accounts at

the End of History:

A Nonideal Approach

to State Apologies

Jasper Friedrich1

Abstract

What are we to make of the fact that world leaders, such as Canada’s

Justin Trudeau, have, within the last few decades, offered official apologies

for a whole host of past injustices? Scholars have largely dealt with this

phenomenon as a moral question, seeing in these expressions of contrition

a radical disruption of contemporary neoliberal individualism, a promise of

a more humane world. Focusing on Canadian apology politics, this essay

instead proposes a nonideal approach to state apologies, sidestepping

questions of what they ought to do and focusing instead on their actual

functioning as political acts. Through a sociologically informed speech act

theory and Foucault’s work on power, apology is conceptualized as a speech

act with an essentially relational nature. The state, through apologizing,

reaffirms the norms governing its relationship to its subjects at a moment

when a past transgression threatens to destabilize this relation. From a

Foucauldian point of view, the state’s power inheres in the very stability of

the state–citizen relation, and we should therefore see apologies as defensive

moves to protect state hegemony. In the context of Western liberal

democracies, such as Canada, apologies embody, rather than challenge, the

logic of neoliberal governmentality by suggesting that everything, including

resentment against the state, can be managed within the current status

quo. Nevertheless, total cynicism about apology politics is not warranted.

In many indigenous apology campaigners’ demands for contrition we see

another side of apologies: their potential to bring about change by enacting

counterhegemonic relations to the state.

1Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

Corresponding Author:

Jasper Friedrich, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford,

Manor Road Building, Manor Road, Oxford, OX1 3UQ, UK.

Email: jasper.friedrich@politics.ox.ac.uk

1065064PTXXXX10.1177/00905917211065064Political TheoryFriedrich

research-article2022

Friedrich 701

Keywords

state apologies, reconciliation, Canada, governmentality, historical injustice

Introduction: The Age of Apology

No less than ten times has Canadian PM Justin Trudeau offered official apol-

ogies on Canada’s behalf for past wrongdoings1—most recently in June 2021

in the wake of the discovery of 751 unmarked graves at the site of a former

residential school in Saskatchewan. While one scholar of political apologies

has named Trudeau’s Canada the “apology capital of the world” (Rhoda

Howard-Hassmann cited in Dickson 2018), this forms part of a global trend.

Throughout the last decades, we have seen a rise in official contrition

expressed by prime ministers, presidents, and other state officials; on the

state’s behalf, they take responsibility for the past and promise to do better in

the future. In response, scholars have availed themselves of such catchy

phrases as “the age of apology” or “a wave of collective apologies” (Trouillot

2000, 173; Gibney et al. 2008). Such expressions are not taken out of the

blue: there has been a steady increase in states’ contrition since the 1990s

(Zoodsma and Schaafsma 2021).

This phenomenon has surprised many. After all, we supposedly live in a

world dominated by liberal individualism where only individuals can be

held to account for their actions—indeed, Celermajer (2009, 3) sees the

trend of contrition as a counterreaction to this world, “a sign of late modern

malaise, of our disappointment with the promises of a rationalized poli-

tics.” On this view, state apologies represent a break with politics as usual.

It is assumed, in one way or another, that “genuine” or “authentic” mea

culpas will always be in the interest of justice. Granted, most actual state

apologies are imperfect, but in theory successful apologies transform the

political world for the better. Such an approach sees apology as a radically

moral act with an origin external to current political logic—a deus ex

1. The ten apologies—more than any other leader has offered on behalf of

their state—were given to the victims of the 1914 Komagata Maru incident

(18.5.2016), former students of Newfoundland and Labrador residential schools

(24.11.2017), Canada’s LGBTQ2 community (28.11.2017), the Tsilhqot’in

Nation (twice: 26.3.2018 and 2.11.2018), Jewish refugees on the MS St. Louis

(7.11.2018), Inuit victims of government tuberculosis policies (8.3.2019), the

Poundmaker Cree Nation (23.5.2019), Italian Canadians interned during World

War II (27.5.2021), and the Cowessess First Nation in the wake of the discovery

of 751 unmarked graves at a former residential school site (25.6.2021). This is

according to The Political Apologies database, available at www.politicalapolo-

gies.com (Zoodsma and Schaafsma 2021).