Political Apologies

[Page 601]Political apologies are actions in which a public figure seeks to remedy (political) damage done by an event, behavior, or policy viewed by the electorate as being negative to the point of offensiveness. Political apologies can be divided into two main groups: personal apologies and historical apologies. Personal apologies relate to events which are relatively current and for which the apologizer is either directly or indirectly responsible (e.g., a decision made in the ministry or department of which she or he is in charge). Historical apologies are ones made for events which are outside of the responsibility of the politician—they often relate to offenses that happened before the politician even entered politics, or in some cases before the politician was born. Personal apologies have ...