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UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Changing the State's Story: Continuity and Change in Official Narratives of Dark Pasts Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3fp384kq Author Dixon, Jennifer Margaret Publication Date 2011 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Changing the State’s Story: Continuity and Change in Official Narratives of Dark Pasts By Jennifer Margaret Dixon A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Assistant Professor Ron E. Hassner, Co-chair Professor Gordon Silverstein, Co-Chair Professor T.J. Pempel Professor Margaret Lavinia Anderson Fall 2011 Copyright © Jennifer Margaret Dixon, 2011. All rights reserved. Abstract Changing the State’s Story: Continuity and Change in Official Narratives of Dark Pasts by Jennifer Margaret Dixon Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science University of California, Berkeley Assistant Professor Ron E. Hassner, Co-chair Professor Gordon Silverstein, Co-chair In the past few decades, there has been a striking increase in demands for apologies for a variety of wrongs committed in the past, including genocide, mass killing, ethnic cleansing and slavery. These calls for apology and reevaluations of the past have led to a dramatic increase in the establishment of truth-seeking institutions and in apologies for past wrongs. And yet, in spite of these trends, the world has witnessed neither a wave of apologies by states responsible for past atrocities nor the end of narratives of impunity. Instead, while some states have looked into and apologized for past crimes, many others continue to silence, deny, whitewash, rationalize and relativize dark pasts. Given the tremendous variation in the degree to which different states have tried to come to terms with dark pasts, it seems evident that the processes shaping such narratives involve more than just the dynamics sketched above. In particular, while these trends have pushed some states to look into dark pasts and have led others to apologize for past wrongs, these international processes have not had a similar impact on all states with dark pasts. This prompts questions about how states’ narratives of past atrocities are created and changed. A central question and the core focus of this dissertation is: What are the sources of change and continuity in states’ narratives of past crimes? This theory-building dissertation investigates how states’ narratives about dark pasts are shaped and contested over time. Employing macro-historical analysis, this project traces the trajectories over the past sixty years of Turkey’s narrative of the 1915-17 Armenian Genocide and Japan’s narrative of the 1937-38 Nanjing Massacre. My findings are based on more than eight months of fieldwork, during which I conducted approximately 75 interviews in Turkey, Japan and the US, gathered primary sources in Turkish archives and libraries, and compiled and analyzed news accounts related to both cases. I have also developed a conceptual continuum with which to measure and compare official narratives. At its core, this research focuses on the processes that shape states’ narratives of past atrocities, and explores how state actors negotiate between the demands of various domestic and international audiences in producing and maintaining such narratives. The central argument advanced in this dissertation is that while international pressures can increase the likelihood of change in official narratives of dark pasts, domestic actors largely determine the content of such 1 change. Specifically, international pressure, both by third parties and victim states, is the most frequent trigger for changes in states’ narratives. Such pressure can challenge the domestic legitimacy of an official narrative and/or change the cost-benefit calculus underlying it, which can lead official actors to consider whether and how to change an official narrative. These considerations, however, are further influenced by officials’ ideational concerns and by political factors within the domestic context, along with the nature of diplomatic relations and the relative balance of power between the pressuring state and the perpetrator state (if applicable.) This project uncovers political dynamics that reach beyond the two cases studied, making central contributions to the literature on the diffusion of international ideas and their impact on states’ practices, to interdisciplinary scholarship on transitional justice and memory politics, and to a growing body of scholarship in the field of Turkish studies. My central argument fills a gap in scholarship on memory studies and transitional justice by theorizing the nature and sources of change in official narratives. In particular, it contrasts with work that emphasizes factors within either the international or the domestic sphere, with work that focuses on single in-depth case studies, and with work that focuses on particular indicators or domains of contestation. The conceptual continuum that I have developed is also a valuable tool that can be used by other scholars who study historical memory to compare narratives over time and across cases. This research also contributes to international relations scholarship on the diffusion and impact of international norms on states’ practices by identifying whether, how and why state actors resist and respond to norm-inspired pressures. In addition, while I find that international normative factors do not have as measurable or clear of an influence on official narratives as international pressures and domestic political dynamics, I also find that norms can influence and be leveraged by supporters as well as opponents of change. In addition to these theoretical contributions, my analysis of the evolution of Turkey’s narrative of the Armenian Genocide constitutes the first systematic analysis of the official historiography of the Armenian Genocide. This contributes to the emerging literature on the history and historiography of the genocide, which is an understudied and important topic in Turkish studies. And finally, this research will be of interest to policymakers who are confronted with controversies over past atrocities by shedding light on the longer-term dynamics set off by pressures on and changes in official narratives. 2 Table of Contents Abstract 1 Table of Contents i List of Figures & List of Acronyms ii Acknowledgements iv Chapter 1: Introduction: Coming to Terms with Dark Pasts? 1 Chapter 2: Theorizing Continuity and Change in Official Narratives of Dark Pasts 27 Chapter 3: Turkey’s Narrative of the Armenian Genocide 47 Chapter 4: Out of the Darkness (1950 – early 1990s) 73 Chapter 5: Limited Acknowledgement and Retrenchment (1994 – 2008) 110 Chapter 6: ‘History issues’ in Postwar Japan 147 Chapter 7: Contestation, Normalization and Change (1952 – 1989) 172 Chapter 8: History, Identity and Apology (1990 – 2008) 205 Chapter 9: Conclusions and Insights 247 Bibliography 259 Appendix 1: Textbooks Analyzed 309 Appendix 2: Interviews Conducted 311 i List of Figures 1.1. Continuum for conceptualizing and measuring change in official narratives 14 1.2. Trajectory of the Turkish narrative, 1950 – 2008 19 1.3. Trajectory of the Japanese narrative, 1952 – 2008 21 2.2. Feedback effect processes 41 2.3. Observable implications of different types of feedback effects 42 3.1. Phases in the Turkish narrative, 1950 – 2008 71 4.1. Trends in official and quasi-official publications on the Armenian question, 1950 – 2005 95 5.1. Trends in publications by type, 1950 – 2005 145 6.1. Phases in the Japanese narrative, 1952 – 2008 170 List of Acronyms AKP Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, Justice and Development Party ARF-D Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutyun ASALA Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia ASAM Avrasya Stratejik Araştırmalar Merkezi, Eurasian Strategic Studies Institute ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations ASİMKK Asılsız Soykırım İddiaları ile Mücadele Koordinasyon Kurulu, Committee to Coordinate the Struggle with the Baseless Genocide Claims ATAA Assembly of Turkish-American Associations ATASE Askerî Tarih ve Stratejik Etüt Başkanlığı, Directorate of Military History and Strategic Studies CHP Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, Republican People’s Party CSCE Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe CUP Committee of Union and Progress, İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti DTP Demokratik Toplum Partisi, Democratic Society Party DYP Doğru Yol Partisi, True Path Party EEC European Economic Community EP European Parliament ERAREN Ermeni Araştırmaları Enstitüsü, Institute for Armenian Research EU European Union FBIS Foreign Broadcast Information Service FDI Foreign Direct Investment GDP Gross Domestic Product GONGO Government-Sponsored Non-Governmental Organization hYd Helsinki Yurttaşlar Derneği, Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly ICJ International Court of Justice IMF International Monetary Fund ITS Institute of Turkish Studies İAGM İstihbarat ve Araştırma Genel Müdürlüğü, Directorate General of Intelligence and Research ii İHD İnsan Hakları Derneği, Human Rights Foundation of Turkey JCP Japanese Communist Party JQ Japan Quarterly JSDF Japan Self-Defense Forces JSP Japan Socialist Party JWRC Center of Research and Documentation on Japan’s War Responsibility LDP Liberal Democratic Party MAZLUMDER İnsan Hakları ve Mazlumlar
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