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Over the years, internationally-minded archivists have had to consider the possibility of taking custody of archives from another country because the archives are at risk in their country of origin. The risks may take many forms, but archives in war-zones and other disaster areas, and archives at environmental risk (including risks of climate change) provide striking examples. The removal of archives from one country to another is always likely to be controversial, however, and even...

For several decades, Japan kept in place significant self-imposed constraints on its security policy even as its economy grew tremendously. While it has been argued that Japan refrained from enacting security policy change because of strong domestic pacifist or anti-militarist sentiments, recently, radical policy changes have nonetheless taken place. How can these changes be understood? The existing explanations typically see them as a response to objectively existing or constructed external...

Japan’s kyōkasho mondai (history textbook controversy) is at a crossroads. This article tries to exemplify it through the analysis of three issue areas at three levels (international, domestic, and societal). Internationally, the study looks into the failure of much anticipated joint history writing projects with China (2006–2010) and South Korea (2002–2005, 2007–2010). Domestically, this study problematises the recent politicisation of the textbook adoption system through the analysis of...

UNESCO’s ‘Memory of the World’ Programme promotes the preservation, universal access and public awareness of the world’s significant documents as the common heritage of all humankind. The inscription of the ‘Documents of Nanjing Massacre’ into the ‘Memory of the World’ Register in 2015 reflects an increasingly globalised concern in the post–Cold War era over the remembrance of war and atrocity. Yet it has reignited the tension between Japan and China, resulting in strong pressure on UNESCO to...

On China's web, networked actors ranging from state agencies to private Internet users engage in highly active online discourse. Yet as diverse as this discourse may be, political content remains highly regulated, particularly on issues that affect the legitimacy of the ruling party. A prominent issue in this regard has been modern Chinese history, particularly the "national humiliation" that Japan inflicted on China's populace during events like the 1937 Nanjing Massacre. This article asks...

This essay looks at the historical background of compensation payments, then considers the impact of World War II on reparations programs, the intellectual criteria for compensation developed by international bodies during the second half of the 20th century, and examples of state-level compensation after 1975 to individuals who were harmed by state actions. It concludes by considering the documents required to prove identity and prove the harm that gives rise to the right to compensation.

This paper investigates how the production of police records was linked to the policies of repression and violence during Guatemala’s civil war. We provide empirical evidence from the Historical Archive of the Guatemalan National Police that the police used language, terminology and codes to record deaths in ways that produced silences about the level of violence during the height of repressive military rule. Using a dataset derived from a statistically valid sample of police records...

The centrality of atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japanese collective memory has been often perceived by the country’s neighbours, i.e. the People’s Republic of China and South Korea, as a pillar of the country’s (alleged) ‘victim consciousness’ and amnesia in regard to the suffering inflicted on others. For this reason, the matter of how Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s fate is discussed on the pages of joint teaching materials is an interesting puzzle. The article uses two...

This article contributes to the relational IR literature on identity politics and Sino-Japanese relations. Theoretically, we develop Rumelili's framework for studying modes of differentiation by incorporating the sectoral characteristics of key discourse signs. Empirically, we apply this framework to the construction of Self and Other in the official Japanese security discourse regarding the Senkaku Islands dispute from 2010–2014, a period of dispute climax that is meaningful for studying...

Why do interstate relations deteriorate and become conflictual, even under conditions where one might expect improved ties? The article seeks an answer to this question through a case study of the deterioration in Sino-Japanese relations in the twenty-first century, which took place despite the existence of several factors that might be thought likely to have led to an improvement. Existing theoretical approaches cannot fully explain this puzzle. The article argues that such deteriorations...

This paper explores the idea of “recuperative memory” with respect to the process of coming to terms with the past after the fall of the Romanian Communist regime in 1989. Its method is to examine the mechanisms used by recuperative memory in order to re-appropriate the past and emphasize the inherently mediated and multifaceted nature of this process. Using various examples from oral testimonies, autobiographical writings, literary works, and cinema, the paper argues that the role of...

Recent thinking and practice in transitional justice suggest that victims and societies hold indivisible, perhaps even simultaneous, rights to truth, justice and reparations after gross human rights violations. This article analyses the advantages and drawbacks of such holistic approaches to transitional justice, through a case study of Chile’s second official truth commission, the ‘Valech Commission’. The article illustrates the politics of ongoing contestation about authoritarian era crimes...

The past wrongdoings of states have received increased attention in recent years, resulting in calls for contrition and apologies. Most commentary has provided policy advice primarily on how former aggressors should handle such “history problems”. The present article, by contrast, draws on insights from research on recognition and ontological security to construct a framework for how external actors can use shaming and praising to influence the ways in which former aggressors deal with the...

Beijing and Tokyo are currently involved in a zero-sum battle for soft power. Both governments are actively trying to shape how third party actors understand contested matters in their bilateral relationship. The dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands is the most obvious flashpoint in this ongoing struggle for hearts and minds. A soft power battle might seem like an innocent endeavour, but by entrenching enmity and legitimizing armed conflict, it might actually translate into one where hard...

In the 1990s, Japanese views of China were relatively positive. In the 2000s, however, views of China have deteriorated markedly and China has increasingly come to be seen as ‘anti-Japanese’. How can these developments, which took place despite increased economic interdependence, be understood? One seemingly obvious explanation is the occurrence of ‘anti-Japanese’ incidents in China since the mid-2000s. I suggest that these incidents per se do not fully explain the puzzle. Protests against...

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) will complete its proceedings over the coming years, leaving behind an enormous collection of records. The ICTY archive provides a record of conviction and acquittal, prosecution case and defense response – a vast series of contested facts and arguments. The ICTY winds down with a decidedly mixed reputation, especially among the communities of the Balkans, doing damage to the already-discredited idea of a Tribunal capable...

Most international relations (IR) research on the role of collective memory and representations of the past gives the impression that these primarily matter for states constrained internationally by their history as aggressors, such as Japan. How former perpetrator states represent the past is seen as important for bilateral relations because it may affect perceptions in previously victimised states. Representations of the past in the victimised states are seldom dealt with. This article...

The idea that China's rise, and more specifically its increased material capabilities, are about to produce a power shift in East Asia raises the question whether the Chinese government's ability to produce effects through discursive power has also increased. The government's use of discourses about China's war against Japan is a conspicuous example of attempts to exercise discursive power. Has China's ability to use the past for political purposes increased as its material capabilities have...

The article analyses the second life of the concept of genocide In public, scholarly and legal post-2006 discourses about how to deal with the communist past In Romania. It counterpoises such problematic radical condemnations with recent developments In local historical studies. The contribution focuses on a new generation of historians (In their thirties and early forties), exemplifying these approaches by discussing novel studies about repression, Institutions and biographies. It argues...