Ambassador Wendy Sherman Hosts IGP Closed Door Discussion on Forgiveness in Diplomacy

SIPA’s Institute of Global Politics’ Carnegie Distinguished Fellow, Wendy Sherman, convened a roundtable on September 12 to examine a phenomenon in diplomacy that is too often overlooked: forgiveness. As a former Deputy Secretary of State with an illustrious career in diplomacy that spans three decades, including leading the US negotiating team that brokered the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Ambassador Sherman is uniquely positioned to understand the complex operational role that forgiveness plays in international negotiations. She said that forgiveness is a deeply personal act that can help facilitate reconciliation between conflicting groups and strengthen the durability of peace. 

As Deputy Secretary of State, Sherman worked to broker the 2023 Japan-South Korea rapprochement nearly 80 years after the conclusion of World War II. Sherman remarked that this lengthy road to reconciliation contrasts sharply with the comparatively short journey to forgiveness undertaken by France and Germany. Accordingly, she asked faculty and student scholars to consider a question she has explored over the last several years of her career: why some nations forgive each other after conflicts while others do not. 

The roundtable was attended by more than 40 IGP Student Scholars and student circle members, and was paneled by: 

• Keren Yarhi-Milo, the Dean of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and the Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Relations 
• Page Fortna, the Harold Brown Professor of U.S. Foreign and Security Policy in the Department of Political Science, and director of the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies (SIWPS)
• Stephen Biddle, professor of international and public affairs, director of the International Security Policy concentration at SIPA, and member of SIWPS 
• Jack Snyder, the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science and at SIWPS 
• Valerie Purdie Greenaway, professor of psychology & special advisor to the Executive Vice President for Arts and Sciences 
• Sarah Daly, associate professor of political science
• Paola Solimena, a postdoctoral research scholar in national security and intelligence at SIWPS

The roundtable served as an open forum for the participants to explore this novel concept aloud, fleshing out their own thinking alongside scholars from diverse academic backgrounds. The breadth of the participants’ areas of expertise – from international relations to history to political psychology – made for an engaging discussion in which they approached forgiveness from a variety of perspectives, revealing several important insights.

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For example, the panelists discussed the differences in thinking about forgiveness at the state level, between leaders and governments, versus the societal level, between different populations. The panel then considered the psychological preconditions for forgiveness: the victim group must feel respected by the perpetrating group, and the perpetrating group must feel liked by the victim group. 

At the state level, one panelist said that apologies are usually made and accepted for strategic reasons, such as the need to balance against new threats. Leaders, however, often face an “apology dilemma”: while practical reasons to apologize may exist, leaders’ domestic constituencies may punish them if they have not built the political will for contrition.

By the end, the panelists all acknowledged that operationalizing forgiveness in diplomacy at scale remains a challenge for scholars and practitioners, given its inherent complexity. This complexity was further illuminated when one of the IGP Student Scholars asked how diasporic communities influence whether their nations of origin forgive or seek forgiveness. Ambassador Sherman noted that diasporic communities are often as significant as domestic constituencies in the journey toward reconciliation, which has been on display throughout fraught peace talks in the Middle East.

Thursday’s roundtable marked the first of many that will be hosted by IGP Carnegie Distinguished Fellows throughout this academic year.