The Politics of Dark Pasts

This chapter reviews the book’s argument, assesses divergences in the two narratives’ trajectories, analyzes the effects of international norms, and discusses the implications of this research. The first part of the chapter argues that the greater degree of domestic contestation and differences in the nature of international pressures help account for the greater changes in Japan’s narrative, while the intensity of Turkish officials’ concerns about territory, compensation, legitimacy, and identity account for stronger continuities in Turkey’s narrative. The chapter then unpacks the ways in which international norms – of truth-telling and accountability and against genocide – have influenced the politics of memory, underscoring norms’ complex and multivalent effects. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the ways in which the book moves beyond prevailing approaches to memory and transitional justice, illuminating the politics inherent in official historiography and the ways in which historical accounts – as instantiated in official narratives – themselves affect politics.