States of apology

Michael Cunningham

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780719089268
• eBook ISBN: 9781847799401
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Medical Theory, Practice & Reference

A critical consideration of the apology in politics

1

The apology: definitional issues

The purpose of this chapter is threefold. The first purpose is to consider some understandings and ideas about what constitutes an apology in the personal sphere. This is necessary because the literature concerning the apology in politics or the state apology has generally used this as a starting point for comparison when considering what constitutes an apology in the sphere of politics. The second purpose is to review the discussion concerning what a political apology looks like and the third is to develop a typology of apologies by states which will help to inform the themes and discussion of subsequent chapters. There is no simple answer to the question ‘What is an apology?’ With this in mind, the first section will give examples of what different disciplines have considered to be the important characteristics of an apology.

Sociolinguistics and pragmatics are the disciplines which have the longest pedigree in the study of the apology; a study that can be traced back to the work of Austin in the early 1960s and Searle later that decade who were interested in the social and cultural context of language meaning and language use.¹ The apology is an example of what they termed a ‘speech act’; a speech act being a statement or group of words that also constitute the performance of the act. One aspect of the speech act is that of illocution which relates to the act being performed, in this case the apology, and the act will employ a particular word or words which constitute what is termed the ‘illocutionary force indicating device’ (IFID).

The apology is a classic example of a speech act and central to the topic of politeness strategies, and thus in recent decades has become one of the most frequently researched topics in sociolinguistics and related disciplines.² Many taxonomies have been produced, however in their summary of developments in the discipline Harris et al. have identified five components of the apology which are common to much of the literature. These are an IFID token (e.g. ‘sorry’ or ‘apologise’), an expression which indicates acceptance of responsibility or blame, an explanation or account, an offer of reparation and a promise of future forbearance. However these five components or criteria are not of equal weight as Harris et al. argue that the first two tend to be found generally in apologies while the last three tend to be more context- or situation-specific.³ This is an important point because a theme of this chapter will be that while ‘ideal type’ apologies, interpersonal or in the public sphere, may be constructed and identified, many commentators argue that apologies which fall short of the ideal type may be effective or of value. This question will be addressed later in this chapter after a consideration of the more common features of the apology.

Three other examples will be offered, from the disciplines of philosophy, sociology and psychology. In an article written in 2000, Kathleen Gill claimed that philosophy as a discipline had largely neglected a consideration of the apology.⁴ In an attempt at remedy, Gill offers five elements which comprise the fullest apology. These are that at least one party believes that the incident actually occurred, at least one party believes the act was inappropriate, someone is responsible for the act, the apologiser should have feelings of regret and remorse and the recipient is justified in believing the apologiser will refrain from such action again. It is interesting to note that Gill does not argue that all of these have to be explicit, especially in the case of minor infractions, but the fullest apology would include these elements or characteristics.

A decade before Gill’s article, Tavuchis had published his oft-cited sociological study of the apology.⁵ In an interesting parallel with Gill, he noted how little attention had been paid to the topic by his discipline. With respect to the interpersonal apology, Tavuchis drew on the established ideas of the apology as speech act with the aim of repairing relations between individuals. The minimal requirement of the apology was that one had to be sorry and to say so. He goes on to say: ‘other features, for example, offers of reparation, self-castigation, shame, embarrassment, or promises to reform, may accompany an apology, but they are inessential because ... they are implicit in the state of “being sorry.”’⁶

This construction of an apology is largely replicated in the 2004 work of the psychologist Aaron Lazare. He offers the following definition of the apology. It ‘refers to an encounter between two parties in which one party, the offender, acknowledges responsibility for an offense or grievance and expresses regret or remorse to a second party, the aggrieved’.⁷ He later argues that the process of apology can be divided into four parts ‘1) the acknowledgment of the offense; 2) the explanation; 3) various attitudes and behaviors including remorse, shame, humility and sincerity; and 4) reparations.’⁸ Lazare then emphasises the importance of context and situation in that not all of these four parts may be necessary in any given and negotiated apology. Thus a common theme that is emerging from texts from four different disciplines is that there are minimal requirements for an apology to ‘count’; however the ‘best’ or fullest apology may have more features than the minimal criteria.

Before returning to a consideration of the interpersonal apology, it is worth a note here concerning Tavuchis’s contribution to the debate which is relevant to the political apology. Although much of the text is concerned with the ‘One to One’ apology (the interpersonal), Tavuchis develops a four-fold typology of apology; the One to One, from the One to the Many, from the Many to the One and from the Many to the Many. The most important distinction between them is that the feeling of sorrow central to the interpersonal apology need not be a feature of the apology involving collectives; the most important feature of these apologies is that they are put on record. While an interpersonal apology can be rendered and be effective through ‘ephemeral words’, in the case of collective apologies ‘the record, as idea and actuality, determines the preparation and formulation of the apology. This is where we can understand the speech itself; that it appears on public record is the apologetic fact.’⁹

It is worth noting that while Tavuchis argues that sorrow is not relevant to the apologies of collectives, such as corporations, the possibility of its pertinence in state apologies is less clear-cut. Some inter-state apologies are discussed in the section on Many to Many apologies which implies that sorrow and emotional engagement is likely to be absent. However, he does concede that the expression of sorrow by a nation as a collective would not strike us as unreasonable personification and therefore it is a meaningful idea.¹⁰

The interpersonal apology will be further discussed here, given its status historically as the ‘backdrop’ or context for discussion of the political apology. Given that we are all familiar with this type of apology, it may be useful here to map some of the above criteria or characteristics against a hypothetical example as beloved of philosophers. This will help to see if these analyses match a more intuitive or ‘everyday’ understanding of the apology and also the extent to which it can be undermined if these aspects are absent. Suppose I stay drinking in the pub and I am late home for dinner cooked by my partner. An apology would be in order because we both agree the incident happened and I accept that it was inappropriate; in this case it breached our implicit or explicit standards of consideration. The question of responsibility seems quite straightforward; I chose to stay drinking. However, for example, if customers were not allowed to leave the pub because the police wanted to interview potential witnesses to an incident this could reasonably be considered a mitigating factor. Mitigation may be more complicated than this. For example, if I chose to stay drinking because I ran into an old friend I had not seen for twenty years who was emigrating the next day, my partner might be less annoyed than if my drinking companion were a colleague I saw every day.

What would now constitute an apology or what action should I take? As indicated in the characteristics or criteria above, elements may be contingent and negotiable. An expression of regret may be sufficient or, as an indication of regret, reparation in the form of a bunch of flowers or box of chocolates. The point here is that between individuals what is an adequate or meaningful apology will generally be an issue for negotiation and no one template fits all occasions or applies to all individuals, or will necessarily be applicable across cultures.

It is fairly easy to identify factors that can undermine the efficacy of the interpersonal apology. In the example above, the lack of an IFID, the refusal to use the word ‘apologise’ or ‘sorry’ may be a problem. A frequent way in which apologies, both interpersonal and public, are undermined is through verbal constructions of mitigation, extenuation, evasion, and use of the passive voice. This could be crudely expressed as ‘I’m sorry, but ...’ when the apologiser provides various qualifications to the apology that, for the recipient, are likely to lessen its impact or bring into question its sincerity. The other factor common to the characteristics outlined by Gill, Harris et al. and implicit in Tavuchis, is that of forbearance. If I am late home from the pub for dinner on a weekly basis, my apology is likely to sound hollow and any undertaking not to repeat the action will be insincere and spurious.

The next section considers what issues arise as the apology becomes increasingly common in the public sphere. One result of this development is that the apology becomes analysed more by scholars in the disciplines of political theory, political science, sociology and theology as the topic moves beyond the sphere of the personal and interpersonal.

Two main topics need to be considered in light of this development; one is whether the components and characteristics of a political (or state) apology can be identified and the other is the ways in which this form of the apology differs from the more ‘traditional’ form of the interpersonal apology. It is possible that they may appear to be different beasts yet comparisons are made, implicitly and explicitly, because the same term is used for both.

Before this is undertaken, a cautionary note needs to be posted. It does not seem to me that an apology which the literature variously terms exemplary, formal, valid or coherent is necessarily a successful one. For example, it is plausible that an apology could meet a stringent list of criteria advocated by academics and political practitioners and be rejected by the intended recipients because they are unreasonable or have, for example, no interest in forgiveness or reconciliation. Conversely, an apology which fails to meet any particular set of criteria may be deemed successful if it leads to improved relations between the apologiser and those to whom the apology is made. This, I think, relates to the gap between empirical, ‘messy’ politics and the construction of ideal types. A ‘successful’ apology may not be a ‘good’ one and the estimation of the success of any actual, concrete apology may be difficult to gauge since its objectives may not be explicit or may be multiple or conflicting. This is why some authors, including Barkan and Karn and Weiner, have stressed that context and circumstance are important in the assessment of the form of the apology to be employed and the likelihood of success.¹¹

Marrus, writing in 2006, also stressed the need to consider context, but argued that there was a large degree of consensus among students of the official (i.e. those issued by public bodies) apology about what constituted its formal elements. The four highlighted were: acknowledgement of a wrong committed, an acceptance of responsibility, an expression of regret or remorse for the harm done and the wrong committed and a commitment to reparation and, when appropriate (part of the fourth feature), to non-repetition of the wrong.¹² A similar list was provided by James in 2008 who outlines eight criteria for what he terms an ‘authentic political apology’.¹³ The apology: ‘1) is recorded officially in writing; 2) names the wrongs in question; 3) accepts responsibility; 4) states regret; 5) promises nonrepetition; 6) does not demand forgiveness; 7) is not hypocritical or arbitrary; and 8) undertakes – through measures of publicity, ceremony, and concrete reparation – both to engage morally those in whose name apology is made and to assure the wronged group that the apology is sincere.’¹⁴ These criteria allow James to compare various state apologies and to judge some more robust than others.

The following section will attempt to explore a little more those elements that have been considered necessary or desirable for a state apology. These elements can be divided into four categories, termed the performative, the personnel, the language and the ‘follow-up’. These terms may be a little clumsy but they capture the salient elements of most of the models of apology that have been developed.

Performative

By performative is meant any or all of the public elements of the ‘acting out’ of the apology. This can be significant for several reasons. First, in presenting the apology in a formal and/or ceremonial setting, the government or the official charged with the responsibility underlines and reinforces the importance of the apology. Second, the more ‘high profile’ the apology, the more likely it is to be on public record, the more likely the undertakings of the apologiser will be recorded ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of tables
• Preface and acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The apology: definitional issues
• 2 The emergence of the apology
• 3 The apology: the principal issues
• 4 The ideological location of the apology
• 5 Intra-state apologies: reflections on the politics of support and opposition
• 6 Inter-state apologies and International Relations
• 7 Evaluating the apology: advantages and disadvantages
• Conclusion
• Bibliographical note
• Bibliography
• Index