Popular views of apologies and most scholarship focus logically on their emotional dimensions. The hope is that apologies will contribute to societal reconciliation, dampening animosities and fostering feelings of national unity. This book takes a wider view of apologies and of reconciliation itself, arguing that apologies assist also in altering the terms of national membership. Reconciliation often includes more than enhanced collective sentiments, extending to the redistribution of political authority and economic resources. Political actors use apologies to advance claims because apologies underscore a state's obligations – moral, political, and sometimes legal – to indigenous people, including the redesign of government policies in ways that largely conform to indigenous objectives. Apology and the attendant historical discussion further these objectives because indigenous arguments rest on historical claims of mistreatment as well as broken treaties and agreements. As Rebecca Tsosie asks in the case of Native Americans, “Why should Congress continue to respect its historic bargain with Native peoples if the citizens of the United States begin to doubt the existence or validity of those agreements?” Revisiting history and apologizing for aspects of it contribute to the needed justifications in all of our cases.

The central question, whether and in which ways are apologies effective, remains to be answered. This chapter seeks to answer that question, assessing in each instance of apology its effects on the legal, political, and affective dimensions of membership and belonging.