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In:Let's talk politics: New essays on deliberative rhetoric
Edited by Hilde Van Belle, Kris Rutten, Paul Gillaerts, Dorien Van De Mieroop and Baldwin Van Gorp
[Argumentation in Context 6] 2014
► pp. 27–43

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More than a nice ritual

Official apologies as a rhetorical act in need of theoretical re-conceptualization

Published online: 30 April 2014
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/aic.6.02vil
Official apologies are public statements of regret presented in the name of collectivities such as nation states, governments, or religious institutions for wrongful actions in the past. This paper argues that we need a theoretical re-conceptualization of the genre in order to better understand its role in civic life. Regarding official apologies as an instantiation of rhetorical citizenship is more productive than regarding them as analogous to interpersonal apologies because they have less to do with forgiveness than commonly assumed. Rather, one of their main functions is to confront and argue about endoxa, commonly accepted opinions, and how they have been ignored or distorted in practice. In this way, official apologies have the potential to serve as an occasion and forum for public discourse on the norms and values informing that community at a given point in time.
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Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Friedrich, Jasper
2022. Settling Accounts at the End of History: A Nonideal Approach to State Apologies. Political Theory 50:5 ► pp. 700 ff. DOI logo
Villadsen, Lisa S.
2020. Progress, but Slow Going: Public Argument in the Forging of Collective Norms. Argumentation 34:3 ► pp. 325 ff. DOI logo
Shchukina, Olga, Maksim Zadorin, Ivan Savelev, Irina Ershova & Tatiana Konopleva
2018. Norwegian policy on sami language learning and preservation. Polish Journal of Educational Studies 71:1 ► pp. 185 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 8 march 2026. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

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