Denunciations refer to public statements condemning unjust acts, practices, institutions, or persons. Denunciations are addressed by citizens either directly to state institutions, or to the wider public, eliciting opprobrium. Both types are proclaimed in the name of the common good and the values of the relevant community. Due to their prominence as weapons of political control within non-democratic regimes (e.g. Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, Nazi Germany), as convenient mechanisms for eliminating political enemies (e.g. revolutionary France, Maoist China), and as expressions of “public outrage and disgust” towards certain groups (e.g. homosexuals, heretics), denunciations have a bad reputation. This paper argues that there is nothing intrinsically problematic with denunciations: when oriented by a commitment to the guiding principles of democracy and done in a way that resonates with the wider society, denunciations can play a critical role within imperfectly just societies. I begin by sketching a normative account of democratic denunciations. I look into their validity conditions in terms of admissible arguments and targets and the standing requirements for denunciators. Special attention is paid to their emotional dimension, often invoked to dismiss denunciations as forms of political participation. I then consider the elements influencing the “success” of a denunciation as a political judgment i.e. their capacity to reveal the sources of injustice and provoke a critical debate: the forms that denunciations can take (legal action, public proclamations, art, etc.), their rhetorical dimensions, the profile of the denunciator, and timing. Lastly, a brief analysis of cases of denunciations will highlight the contribution that such practices can make to the health of democratic politics. The legal case against the racism in Hergé’s Tintin au Congo, the Argentinian eschrache as a form of denouncing unjust amnesty laws and the murderers they protected, and Thomas Bernhard’s Heldenplatz will be discussed.
