Shakespeare shows how violence can be prevented by replacing retribution, or revenge, with “restorative justice”: renouncing punishment toward others and the self, thus transcending both shame and guilt ethics, and giving violent offenders the opportunity and means to restore to the community what they had taken from it, thus reconciling with their community. In Measure for Measure, Duke Vincentio conducts a psychological experiment showing how the “retributive” apparatus of the state produced an attempted (judicial) murder and rape, whereas the Duke’s approach prevented all violence, by individuals and the state. The Tempest and The Winter’s Tale illustrate the same principles and outcome. The Merchant of Venice, however, shows how severely restorative justice is compromised when the primary cause and constituent of violence is ignored, and attention is paid only to its symptom or consequence (Shylock’s anger at Antonio’s anti-Semitism).

We may not always want citizens to care so much about retributive justice since these concerns pave the way for populist, authoritarian, and illiberal trajectories. But instead of indulging in the comfortable assumption that democracy naturally results in effective governance, we need to recognize and understand when and why these concerns come to the fore so that we can understand how best to work toward the political outcomes that we deem normatively desirable. This chapter discusses recent democratic backsliding, the dangers of anti-corruption politics, and what liberal democrats can learn from authoritarians through the lens of retributive justice.

Chapter 2 explicates the retributive justice theory of citizen engagement. This theory starts from the premise that people prefer government authorities who govern according to principles that have a moral basis, that we want more from government than simply deferring to elites with more power and resources. I argue that one fundamental expectation is for government authorities to provide retributive justice, or the use of punishment to uphold what is fair and right. Besides deterring future malfeasance, such punishment upholds the fundamental values of the political community and enables higher-level officials to show citizens they are moral leaders. Thus, when authoritarian politicians – both in robustly authoritarian regimes and in electoral democracies moving toward greater authoritarianism – successfully show citizens they are committed to retributive justice, they may enjoy a high level of public support and legitimacy and high levels of citizen engagement and voluntary compliance.

Chapter 3 illustrates the importance of retributive justice from the perspective of the state. Using the case of China, the chapter shows how leaders behave as if addressing the public’s concerns about retributive justice are important for their ability to maintain power. In fact, rulers may even foster such concerns in order to experience the bump in public support that comes from subsequently taking action to alleviate those concerns. In tracing the historical evolution of state strategies for retributive justice, we can see how state building involves not just resource extraction and the accumulation of coercive power but also the production of moral order. In China, government authorities and the public throughout the imperial and communist periods have consistently highlighted that retributive justice is and should be a core function of the state. Indeed, government authorities have at times taken active steps to encourage public outrage at the corruption and malfeasance of local state agents in order to then benefit from the implementation of retributive justice.

Under what circumstances do ordinary people prefer to elect illiberal leaders they know will violate individual rights? Why do people sometimes view authoritarian leaders as fair, just, and morally upstanding? This book aims to demonstrate that retributive justice concerns matter for how citizens judge government and how they make decisions about when to engage and comply with government authorities. While economic performance, public goods provision, democratic institutions, and redistribution matter as well, this book argues that retributive justice matters as much and sometimes more than these other criteria. A retributive justice model of citizen engagement has important implications for understanding the conditions under which we might expect populism to increase, interventions promoting citizen participation and government accountability to fail, and state building to succeed. Bridging behavioral and institutional approaches, this book’s retributive justice theory of citizen engagement accounts for authoritarian resilience as well as democratic fragility within a new, unified framework.

Chapter 4 turns to the perspective of ordinary citizens and examines the ways in which retributive justice concerns shape citizen attitudes and behavior toward government authorities. Drawing on qualitative research conducted with a random sample of households in diverse communities across rural China, the chapter begins with narratives that ordinary people frequently use to explain what they expect from government authorities and generates hypotheses about retributive justice concerns. The chapter then tests whether the retributive justice concerns voiced by citizens in qualitative interviews indeed have a causal impact on citizen evaluations of government authorities. Through a series of experiments embedded in original, in-person field surveys administered in two rural regions of China, as well as an online survey of urban respondents, we see that citizens prefer government leaders who address citizen concerns about retributive justice by punishing corruption and malfeasance within the government. Even when government authorities fail on other dimensions, they can still garner approval from citizens when they show they are willing to engage in anti-corruption measures.

The next question is whether these findings apply to the real world. Do we see similar patterns between real-world institutions for top-down discipline and citizen evaluations of their actual officials? Does retributive justice affect behavioral outcomes? And are retributive justice concerns salient in countries other than China? Chapter 5 assesses the external validity of the causal relationships presented in Chapter 4 in several ways. It draws on original surveys conducted both before and after the launch of the current anti-corruption campaign in China to examine whether citizens in localities with stronger top-down institutions for bureaucratic discipline have more positive evaluations of local authorities, higher levels of participation, and higher willingness to engage in voluntary compliance. The chapter then expands the investigation beyond rural China to discuss findings showing that retributive justice concerns help account for voluntary compliance behaviors among urban Chinese as well as in countries beyond China.

Desiring vengeance against those that hurt us is deeply human; justice systems are one means by which those desires can be contained and addressed in ways that avoid cycles of revenge. However, such systems require that people have trust in them. We begin with the relationship between institutional trust and the reduction of vengefulness. We then consider how youth develop their sense of institutional trust, with a particular emphasis on school justice systems in the K-12 context. We propose that a narrative approach to institutional trust might complement existing work, and outline strengths of that approach. We contrast retributive disciplinary and restorative justice systems in schools and consider how each of these systems looks from a narrative lens. Finally, we make recommendations for future research and practice based on ways that institutional trust, narrative, and school-based approaches to justice and discipline may reduce vengeful behavior and promote youths’ development.

This chapter addresses several central issues in the study of revenge during childhood and adolescence, focusing specifically on moral evaluations of retaliation and retributive justice. We begin by distinguishing among relevant concepts and consider their respective moral status by discussing their moral-philosophical foundations. Next, we summarize and critique classic developmental psychology research on children’s reasoning about retaliation, focusing on Piaget’s (1932) early work but also addressing Kohlberg’s (1981) account when appropriate. This is followed by a discussion of social-cognitive domain theory (SCDT), a constructivist developmental perspective that we assert is better able than earlier psychological approaches to address the ambiguities of provocation, retaliation, and revenge. Consistent with recent trends in SCDT research, we also consider individual differences in children’s evaluations and responses to provocation, focusing on research investigating the social and psychological correlates of retaliatory aggression. Finally, the chapter concludes with a review of key findings and suggestions for future research.

Sierra Leone was the first country to simultaneously deploy what are traditionally thought of as alternative post-conflict justice mechanisms: a special tribunal to prosecute crimes, and a truth and reconciliation commission to promote national healing and reconciliation. This chapter assesses the important Special Court jurisprudence on this topic and its implications for other post-conflict situations in Africa and around the world. In the first part, the chapter compares the similarities, and differences, in the mandates of the two institutions. The author then discusses how the TRC began its operations in 2002 at the same time as the Special Court was carrying out its investigations and issuing indictments against suspects accused of committing international crimes within the tribunal’s jurisdiction. Second, the chapter addresses the question of hierarchy and primacy between the two institutions: with the TRC being a domestic program and the Special Court maintaining an international authority. Finally, the chapter addresses the attempted testimony of a key SCSL defendant, or rather lack thereof, at the TRC and the tussle between the two bodies regarding protection of the fair trial rights of the suspects and the implications for future similar situations.

Chapter 2 dwells upon the operationalization of the reparative dimension of international criminal justice at the international level, with a focus on the historical evolution of reparations by international criminal courts and tribunals prior to the ICC, and the reparative justice model devised by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). The goal of this chapter is to retrace the diverse models in place in international criminal tribunals in regards to reparations, from a model that excludes reparations from criminal proceedings to one that has a role for victims and encompasses reparative dimensions of justice. Concerning the latter, this chapter analyzes in-depth the reparation regime developed at the ECCC, including the role of parties civiles, and the rich developing case law of the court regarding reparations. This chapter provides a careful analysis of all decisions on reparations and submissions of the parties, it engages with critical scholarship on the system developed at the ECCC, the impact of reparation orders for victims and discusses practical and policy considerations of the types of reparation that can be ordered (collective and moral reparations). It also analyses the partie civile system under which the ECCC operates and discusses the contribution of the evolving case law to the development of reparative justice for international crimes.