The Politics of Official Apologies

This book examines the political uses of official apologies in the United States, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Nobles explores why minority groups demand such apologies and why governments do or do not offer them. She argues that apologies can help to alter the terms and meanings of national membership. Minorities demand apologies in order to focus attention on historical injustices, the rectification of which, they argue, should guide changes in present-day government policies. When employed by political actors, apologies play an important, if under appreciated, role in bringing certain views about history and moral obligation to bear in public life.

Author: Melissa Nobles
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 01/01/2008
Pages: 216
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.65lbs
Size: 8.99h x 6.27w x 0.53d
ISBN: 9780521693851

About the Author
Nobles, Melissa: - Melissa Nobles (BA in History, Brown University; Ph.D. in Political Science, Yale University) is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Nobles' teaching and research interests are in the comparative study of racial and ethnic politics and issues of retrospective justice. She is the author of Shades of Citizenship: Race and the Census in Modern Politics (2000), which received the 2001 Outstanding Book Award from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists, as well as honorable mention of the Ralph Bunche Book Award from the American Political Science Association. Nobles has been a Fellow at Boston University's Institute on Race and Social Division (2000-1) and Harvard University's Radcliffe Center for Advanced Study (2003-4).

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