Taking stock of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the collapse of the communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe, this volume explores how these societies have grappled with the serious human rights violations of past regimes. It focuses on the most important factors that have shaped the nature, speed, and sequence of transitional justice programs in the period spanning the revolutions that brought about the collapse of the communist dictatorships and the consolidation of new democratic regimes. Contributors explain why leaders made certain choices, discuss the challenges they faced, and explore the role of under-studied actors and grassroots strategies. Written by recognized experts with an unparalleled grasp of the region's communist and post-communist reality, this volume addresses far-reaching reckoning, redress, and retribution policy choices. It is an engaging, carefully crafted volume, which covers a wide variety of cases and discusses key transitional justice theories using both qualitative and quantitative research methods.

'This volume succeeds in presenting a coherent and nuanced account of the post-1989 experience of CEE with dealing with the past. It speaks of several commonalities with regard to not only political manipulations of truth and memory, the abuses and misuses of transitional justice for scapegoating or political legitimacy, the role of liminality and transcendence, but also of the trade-off between truth and democratic development. It convincingly shows that transitional justice in CEE is much broader than the topic of lustration and offers numeric shades of grey to each of the attempted policies of reckoning.'

Jessie Hronesova Source: Nationalities Papers

'I believe that Stan and Nedelsky’s ambitious and systematic book is bound to become a work of reference for scholars of transitional justice and area studies, and for political theorists alike. Since the volume forwards the understanding of transitional justice in several different ways, it is also not difficult to see it included in reading lists for advanced seminars or lectures in transitional justice or political theory.'

Liviu Damsa Source: Europe-Asia Studies