In this book, I have demonstrated that issues of transitional justice – that is, procedures for dealing with members and collaborators of the ancien régime – are central to understanding the character, timing, and success of regime transitions. I have attempted to connect three influential bodies of literature that have largely been developing in isolation: the literature on regime transitions, the literature on transitional justice, and the new literature on authoritarianism and institutions.

An extensive body of scholarship uses the mode of transition to explain the types of transitional justice mechanisms that are adopted (Huntington 1991; Huyse 1995; Linz and Stepan 1996). Few scholars, however, have examined how former autocrats' anticipations of transitional justice may affect their willingness to democratize, and none has systematically linked the threat of retributive justice to the problem of amnesty for the old regime. Some scholars examining Latin American transitions have developed hypotheses about anticipating transitional justice (Geddes 1999, 2002; O'Donnell and Schmitter 1986). But those authors have argued that hypotheses about the effect of anticipating transitional justice on the feasibility of transitions to democracy cannot be extended to nonmilitary regimes of the fourth wave of democratization. They contend that single-party authoritarian regimes do not have access to the same coercive measures that outgoing military juntas do. Here, I demonstrate that the anticipation of punishment for past wrongdoings had a clear effect on the incentives of both outgoing autocrats and dissidents in East Central Europe, especially during the roundtable discussions in which the terms of transition were negotiated.