HPS³ - Georg Vanberg - Transitional Justice and Bureaucratic Oversight: Tainted Prosecutors and Accountability for Nazi Crimes in West Germany.We welcome Georg Vanberg on Wednesday, December 11 2024 to the HPS Seminar Series

11 December 2024, 5:15 pm

The Hamburg Political Science Seminar Series (HPS³) features international speakers presenting cutting-edge research in empirical political science and political economy.

We welcome on Wednesday, 11 December 17:15-18:45 CET in VMP9 B130

Georg Vanberg (Duke University)

Title: Transitional Justice and Bureaucratic Oversight: Tainted Prosecutors and Accountability for Nazi Crimes in West Germany.

Abstract:​ Following transitions from authoritarian rule, new democracies typically confront an immediate challenge. Establishing functioning governance requires staffing thousands of positions with competent individuals. At the same time, many of those who possess the necessary skills and expertise served the prior autocratic regime in similar roles. The preferences and commitments of such ``tainted'' personnel may be hostile, and their presence in government may undermine the goals and policies of a new democracy. How can a newly democratic regime navigate this tension? Principal-agent theory suggests that appropriate institutional design is critical in this context: Tainted officials are likely to pose a threat to democratic transitions when they are not subject to effective monitoring. But if embedded in institutional frameworks that allow for effective oversight, it may be possible to draw on their expertise while containing the potential threat they pose. We analyze a unique dataset of prosecutorial decisions regarding close to 15,000 criminal complaints filed against Nazi crimes in post-war West Germany. The results strongly suggest that institutional context matters: Nazi affiliations by local prosecutors, who were subject to extensive oversight, appear to have had no effect on prosecutorial decision-making. This finding contrasts sharply with the behavior of prosecutors-general, who enjoyed significant independence. Prosecutors-general with ties to the Nazi regime were far less likely to initiate prosecutions for Nazi crimes than their untainted counterparts.

The HPS³ seminars take place  in person at the UHH. Please find the preliminary program on the HPS³ Website.

We invite everyone interested to attend the HPS Seminar Series and are looking forward to seeing you.