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Fri 24 March
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Wednesday 22 March 2006 8:30
G-1 POL17 Justice and Statebuilding I
Room G
Networks: Criminal Justice , Chair: Matthijs Lok
Organizers: - Discussants: -
Zacharoula Kouki : The right to Reform and the reform of Right: the show trials of the late 60s in the Soviet Union
In February 1966, two Soviet writers, Andrei Siniavskii and Yuri Daniel are brought to court, tried and convicted on charges of carrying out anti Soviet agitation by publishing abroad works defamatory to the Soviet political and social system. This trial triggered a chain reaction of protests and repressions that brought ... (Show more)
In February 1966, two Soviet writers, Andrei Siniavskii and Yuri Daniel are brought to court, tried and convicted on charges of carrying out anti Soviet agitation by publishing abroad works defamatory to the Soviet political and social system. This trial triggered a chain reaction of protests and repressions that brought about new trials, new protests and new repressions by the Brezhnev’s regime. In this paper our intention would be to examine the public discourse produced as a result of these show trials and of its public repercussions.
These events have been hitherto interpreted as an introduction to the Brezhnev era, suggesting a clear cut transition from thaw to stagnation. However, this era of negotiating reform must have been a more ambiguous and contested both for the leaders and for the people.
In order to approach differently these trials and this period, we propose to analyse the texts generated from the trials as inscribed into a culture of political practices central to and distinctive of the political and legal Soviet discourse: the Pokazatel’nyi protsessy (model show trials) and the defendants’ conduct and function in this process, known as kritika i samokritika (criticism and self criticism). The way individuals confessed publicly in court crimes not committed was part of the way individuals presented themselves through self criticism in everyday life; part of the way they understood themselves and their relation to power; part of the way power defined and negotiated state policies.
During the trials of the late 60’s, the defendants negated to confess, demanded that their legal and civil rights be respected, the attorneys defended the accused, while citizens edited and signed protests, participated in public manifestations and disseminated samizdat publications objecting to state illegal policies: all these add to a culture of legality as a means of talking about the past, the future and the present in the Soviet Union.
In a culture of staged symbolic politics, the change in the individuals’ discourse during the trials in the late 60s, including in its public repercussions, may constitute indications of a broader transformation of political culture, something that generate numerous questions. (Show less)

Dimitris Kousouris : Justice, Ideology and Politics of Liberation: The Winners' Law as Established by the Trials of Collaborators and War Criminals. Greece, Italy and France
The end of the World War II, as experienced under the mass bombardments, the revelations on German concentration camps and the new nuclear threat, has been often described as the culminant point of a European Civil War. The task of rebuilding European states after the catastrophe had to deal with ... (Show more)
The end of the World War II, as experienced under the mass bombardments, the revelations on German concentration camps and the new nuclear threat, has been often described as the culminant point of a European Civil War. The task of rebuilding European states after the catastrophe had to deal with a breakdown of the moral argument of modernity. It was through the jurisdictional practices, that is through the trials of politically and militarily responsible individuals of the defeated camp, that the winning alliance had planned, well before the end of the war, to refound the moral principles of the post-war world.
The legal discourse produced and emitted in the public sphere through on one hand the trials of War Criminals, in the international level, and on the other through the judgements of collaborators in each of the previously occupied countries, has been the first, primary narration of the War. That winners’ version has been imposed as the general norm, creating not only the legal concepts but also the elementary historical categories (such as the duel Resistance- Collaboration) through which the war has been narrated.
My paper is based on a research-in-progress on the legal and moral discourses produced in that moment by writers, journalists and philosophers in three of the countries that have been involved in the war through civil conflicts that have profoundly shaken their internal cohesion : France, Italy and Greece. How has the aim of achieving the continuity of the state apparatuses been followed in a moment when entire parts of those apparatuses had collaborated with the forces of the Axe? Which were the questions left without response in the collective memory after the amnesties finally provided some years after the end of the conflict? How different groups of collective memory did to accommodate themselves into the official national narratives in the Cold War context?
Having examined the Greek juridical archives that haven’t been studied up to the moment, and based on the numerous studies made on each of the épurations in France and Italy I intend to try a genealogy of the different discourses on War as have been developed later on through the emergence of revisionist and anti-revisionist currents. I will use for this purpose in my paper the discussions between Sartre and Merleau-Ponty on Justice in Les Temps Modernes in 1945-46, the Italian literary narratives on War (C.Pavese, E. Morante)in the immediate Italian dopoguerra, the debate on the amnesty given to the fascists by the communist leader Togliatti in 1946 and, on the other side, the discourse emitted by the defendants as seen into the trials or in the writings and perception of C. Schmitt or M. Bardèche. (Show less)

Michail Sotiropoulos : State building through Law formation: the role of university (law) professors in the case of 19th century Greece and Italy
In the present paper, we intend to examine the democratization process of 19th century Greece and Italy through the role played by the Faculties of Law in the countries under question. This does not constitute an institutional history of the faculties of Law stricto sensu, but an attempt to study ... (Show more)
In the present paper, we intend to examine the democratization process of 19th century Greece and Italy through the role played by the Faculties of Law in the countries under question. This does not constitute an institutional history of the faculties of Law stricto sensu, but an attempt to study the social, political and cultural role of the Law departments and of the university in general in the state building. The work is focused on the social recruitment of the professors, meaning their social and cultural origins (social and cultural capital); based on a prosopographic approach (‘bilan prosopographique’) as proposed by Christophe Charle , we examine the requirements, typical (academic merit) but also atypical (economic, familial, societal relations) for the adhesion in this branch of the modern elites
Moreover, we have relied extensively on the use of the notion ‘cultural transfers’ (transferts culturelles ) to designate the development of the University (privileging the faculty of Law) but also of the scientific paradigms prevalent in each period.
The main part of historiography until today has focused on the national or social role of the University. It has been viewed either as the main agent of promoting the national ideas or as the main producer of the bureaucratic strata. But these approaches identify the objectives of the University with the visions of the state, lacking severe historical perspective. It is usually the official discourses that are taken into consideration neglecting the actual function of the University and the actions of its professors. However, the discourse, the actions and the networks of the professors can challenge this static view of the University. The debates within the academic ranks, the European networks of the professors, the creation by the members of the University of institutionally autonomous literate and scientific associations, the role of the University in the major political changes in 19th century Greece and Italy, all these are signs of the rising importance of the ‘universitaire’, transcending the national frontiers especially after the first half of the 19th century .
Three intersecting issues derive from this perspective: first, the significance of the university professors in the formation and in the composition of the intellectual elites of the new states. During the second half of the 19th century there was a substantial proliferation of the intellectual networks all around Europe: could we explain the social and cultural advancement of Greece and Italy by focusing in the growing political and social discourse of the intellectuals and especially through their participation in the European networks of late 19th century?
The second question is about the position of the intellectual elites produced by the university in the social structure of the countries. Could we speak in the case of Greece and Italy for a Bildungsburgertum following the German pattern, or this intellectual bourgeoisie had more affiliations either with the economic bourgeoisie, extremely important in the kingdom especially after 1870 or with the ‘state ruling elite’ ?
The third issue engages in a comparative approach, as it concerns the different options for the development of the Law in Greece and Italy as reflected in the major discussions for the adoption of democratic constitutional changes in both countries. (Show less)



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