Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>After governments commit severe human rights abuses against their own citizens, what motivates these governments (or their successors) to promise and pay reparations for their crimes? This book posits that, in keeping with the political process model developed by the social movement literature, domestic, bureaucratic/administrative reparations programs in democracies are the result of victim group mobilization. The book shows the utility and generalizability of this theory by applying it to three case studies: the West German government’s reparations decisions regarding Jewish Germans affected by the Holocaust, the West German government’s reparations decisions regarding reparations for Romani Germans persecuted by the Nazis, and the Peruvian government’s reparations decisions regarding Peruvians harmed by the country’s 1980–2000 Internal Armed Conflict. Using original interviews and archival data, these detailed case studies show that when victims’ groups mobilize and pressure a formerly abusive state for reparations, those reparations will be forthcoming in most democracies. Conversely, when victims do not organize and demand reparations, reparations will almost certainly not be paid. The book demonstrates that the absence, creation, and timing of the case studies’ domestic reparations programs are best explained not by economic considerations or international pressure but rather by the lobbying efforts of organized victims’ groups.</jats:p>