Regime change - Lessons from Germany on justice, institution building, and democracy

As an instance of externally induced regime change, the postwar West German case is both highly exceptional and importantly paradigmatic; it is more usefully read as a cautionary tale than as a recipe for future action. Local circumstances, some tied to earlier patterns of social and political development but many produced by the cold war and the particular nature of the Nazi dictatorship, promoted successful institution building while attenuating postwar pressures for moral clarity. The rapid development of strong institutions, combined with moral ambiguity on questions touching the Nazi past, helped build popular support for the new democratic regime. West German success in the institutional realm was the result of probably nonreplicable circumstances, while frustration in the quest for justice is built into the logic of democratization processes and indeed persists after democratic consolidation has occurred. Externally engineered democracies are likely to remain a rarity.