Does Lustration Promote Trustworthy Governance? An Exploration of the Experience of Central and Eastern Europe

Horne, Cynthia; Levi, Margaret

doi:10.1057/9781403981103_4

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…National governments in CEE claim they are enacting lustration policies to improve citizen perceptions of the trustworthiness of post-communist public institutions and government (David, 2003;Horne, 2009b). In addition to the potential violations of rule of law principles, critics also argue that the laws tend to get caught in cycles of political manipulation (Horne & Levi, 2004). This conflicts sharply with the contention by critics that the problems associated with both the letter and implementation of lustration threaten to undermine the process of democratic consolidation.…”

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Assessing the Impact of Lustration on Trust in Public Institutions and National Government in Central and Eastern Europe

Horne

2011

Comparative Political Studies

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Lustration is alternately theorized and anecdotally alleged to either undermine or contribute to the democratic transitions in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) by supporting or undermining trust in public institutions, and by extension trust in national government. Using quantitative data on nine countries in CEE, this study examines the impact of lustration and transitional justice measures on citizen perceptions of the trustworthiness of public institutions and national government. It tests whether and how the timing of lustration, the severity of lustration, or the packaging of lustration with other forms of transitional justice affect trust in public institutions and national government. This article finds that even when controlling for economic growth, democratization, and corruption levels, lustration consistently and positively contributes to citizen trust in public institutions. However, lustration and transitional justice measures have an indirect and diluted impact on trust in national government, Comparative Political Studies 45(4)Bio Cynthia M. Horne is an associate professor of political science at Western Washington University. Her research interests focus on economic and political aspects of post-Communist transitions, with an emphasis on transitional justice issues and the role of trust in regime building. She is most grateful to Benjamin Smith, Todd Donovan, and Margaret Levi for comments and suggestions on this paper.

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Assessing the Impact of Lustration on Trust in Public Institutions and National Government in Central and Eastern Europe

Horne

2011

Comparative Political Studies

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“…The major problem with lustration in the Czech Republic is that the StB's files were far from complete. Prior to the introduction of lustration, all of the StB's active files, believed to be 90 percent of all files, were destroyed (Horne and Levi 2004). Because only inactive files were available for lustration, by the early 2000s only 3 percent of the 345,000 certificates issued by the Interior Ministry were positive for collaboration (David 2003, 414).…”

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confidence: 99%

The Politics of Leverage in International Relations

2015

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“…Defined as transitional public employment laws, these laws were very controversial in their design and implementation (see David 2006: 348, n. 5). While most scholars focused on the origin of lustration laws 4 and their context in the socioeconomic transformation (Eyal 2000; Eyal et al 1998), their effects have also been debated (see, for example, Choi and David 2012; Horne and Levi 2004; Letki 2002). In focusing on strategies of transitional justice, we are only interested in the method on which the laws were based.…”

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Transitional Justice and Changing Memories of the Past in Central Europe

David¹

2013

Gov. & oppos.

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Memories of wrongdoings are often viewed as an obstacle to reconciliation in divided societies. Is it due to the past or the present politics of the past? To examine the dilemma of essentialism versus presentism, this article investigates the impact of transitional justice on memories of wrongdoing. It theorizes that using different transitional justice strategies to deal with the same wrongdoing shapes memories in different ways. The theory is tested via vignette-based surveys in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, which adopted distinct lustration laws. The results show that wrongdoing is viewed through lustration laws, reflecting present power constellations, not history.

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Does Lustration Promote Trustworthy Governance? An Exploration of the Experience of Central and Eastern Europe

Cited by 12 publications

References 20 publications

Assessing the Impact of Lustration on Trust in Public Institutions and National Government in Central and Eastern Europe

Assessing the Impact of Lustration on Trust in Public Institutions and National Government in Central and Eastern Europe

The Politics of Leverage in International Relations

Transitional Justice and Changing Memories of the Past in Central Europe

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