Dark Pasts: Changing the State's Story in Turkey and Japan

by Jennifer M. Dixon

Overview

In Dark Pasts, Jennifer M. Dixon asks why states deny past atrocities, and when and why they change the stories they tell about them.

In recent decades, states have been called on to acknowledge and apologize for historic wrongs. Some have apologized, while others have silenced, denied, and relativized past crimes. Dark Pasts unravels the complex and fraught processes through which state narratives of past atrocities are constructed, contested, and defended. Focusing on Turkey's narrative of the Armenian Genocide and Japan's narrative of the Nanjing Massacre, Dixon shows that international pressures increase the likelihood of change in states' narratives of their own dark pasts, even as domestic considerations determine their content.

Combining historical richness and analytical rigor, Dark Pasts is a revelatory study of the persistent presence of the past and the politics that shape narratives of state wrongdoing.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501730245
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	11/15/2018
Pages:	276
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jennifer M. Dixon is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Villanova University. She has published articles in Perspectives on Politics, South European Society and Politics, and International Journal of Middle East Studies.

Table of Contents

List of Acronyms
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Coming to Terms with Dark Pasts?
1. Changing the State's Story
2. The Armenian Genocide and Its Aftermath
3. From Silencing to Mythmaking (1950–early 1990s)
4. Playing Hardball (1994–2008)
5. The Nanjing Massacre and the Second Sino-Japanese War
6. "History Issues" in the Postwar Period (1952–1989)
7. Unfreezing the Question of History (1990–2008)
Conclusion: The Politics of Dark Pasts
Appendix 1: Research Conducted
Appendix 2: Turkish High School History Textbooks Analyzed
Notes
References
Index

What People are Saying About This

Stephen Van Evera

Dark Pasts is required reading for those interested in how and why governments engage in historical mythmaking about their own past human rights atrocities, and how they suppress others' efforts to reveal these atrocities.

Scott Straus

Jennifer Dixon draws on extensive evidence from Turkey and Japan to develop a careful conceptual framework and advance a persuasive argument. Her fascinating book has implications for scholars of memory, justice, and human rights, and for those seeking to understand state narratives, how they matter, and why they shift.

Fatma Müge Göçek

The quality of Dark Pasts is excellent. Dixon’s work is unique in its comparison of the denial of violence in both Turkey and Japan, and in its analytical rigor. Well-conceived, based on a wealth of resources, this book is a significant contribution.

Bronwyn Leebaw

In this fascinating study, Jennifer Dixon investigates when and how official narratives about political violence actually change. Her findings are eye-opening and reveal how the dynamic interplay between international pressure and domestic contestation influences the politics of memory. This book should be read by scholars of human rights, transitional justice, and comparative politics.

Fatma Müge Göçek

"The quality of Dark Pasts is excellent. Dixon’s work is unique in its comparison of the denial of violence in both Turkey and Japan, and in its analytical rigor. Well-conceived, based on a wealth of resources, this book is a significant contribution."

Editorial Reviews

Jennifer Dixon has made a substantive contribution to the study of state narratives with Dark Pasts.... In this elegant and riveting book, Dixon develops a causal model of narrative change for state denial or apology for atrocities committed against civilians.... Dixon's range of methods...makes her own storytelling in the book emotionally vibrant and thus eminently readable, while also being rigorously supported with empirical evidence.

Political Psychology

Dixon offers valuable insights into how a country addresses its past horrors. This book offers some reassurance to those who fight for change, demonstrating that their efforts can be effective.

Choice

"The book powerfully demonstrates how Japan and Turkey have walked the tightrope of maintaining "plausibility and legitimacy". Through interviews with diplomats and analysts and the exploration of textbooks, newspapers, and other publications, Dixon distills more than fifty years' worth of official narrative in two states five thousand miles apart into a well-argued, systematic analysis of governments' struggles with uncomfortable truths."

H-Net

"Jennifer Dixon draws on extensive evidence from Turkey and Japan to develop a careful conceptual framework and advance a persuasive argument. Her fascinating book has implications for scholars of memory, justice, and human rights, and for those seeking to understand state narratives, how they matter, and why they shift."

Scott Straus

"Dark Pasts is required reading for those interested in how and why governments engage in historical mythmaking about their own past human rights atrocities, and how they suppress others' efforts to reveal these atrocities."

Stephen Van Evera

"In this fascinating study, Jennifer Dixon investigates when and how official narratives about political violence actually change. Her findings are eye-opening and reveal how the dynamic interplay between international pressure and domestic contestation influences the politics of memory. This book should be read by scholars of human rights, transitional justice, and comparative politics."

Bronwyn Leebaw

Dark Pasts is not only a fascinating account of Turkish and Japanese narrative change; it also valuably contributes to scholarship on what makes certain forms of politics possible and impossible in varying contexts... helps us understand not only why states struggle with contrition, but also how international legitimacy seeking tempers nationalist glorification of human rights abuses.

Journal of Genocide Research

The book powerfully demonstrates how Japan and Turkey have walked the tightrope of maintaining "plausibility and legitimacy". Through interviews with diplomats and analysts and the exploration of textbooks, newspapers, and other publications, Dixon distills more than fifty years' worth of official narrative in two states five thousand miles apart into a well-argued, systematic analysis of governments' struggles with uncomfortable truths.

H-Diplo

Dixon has made an extremely valuable contribution to the growing and vibrant literature on the politics of memory and apology. Dark Pasts deserves to be widely read in the scholarly community and is sure to find use in graduate seminars and advanced undergraduate courses.

Perspectives on Politics

Dark Pasts represents an important advancement in the study of atrocities, state memory, and international norms. This book will be of value to scholars, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates interested in human rights and questions of post-conflict justice more generally, as well as Turkey and Japan more specifically.

Nations and Nationalism

The official narratives of Turkey and Japan in regard to their respective 'dark pasts,' like Dixon's book cover, are both deceptively aesthetic on the surface while containing many layers. Dixon unpacks them well.

The Armenian Weekly

Dark Pasts will be a reference for studies of memory politics in all parts of the world with troubled pasts. The book's excellence in collecting and analyzing archival and interview data should guide historically informed social science scholarship. The theoretical framework and the findings give scholars of history, memory, human rights, nationalism, and international relations much to think about and debate.

Nationalities Papers

Jennifer Dixon has written a path-breaking book that is a model of scholarship, one rich in both detail and analysis, and beautifully written.

Genocide Studies International