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In the last twenty years, the field of transitional justice has gone from being a peripheral concern to an ubiquitous feature of societies recovering from mass conflict or repressive rule. In both policy and scholarly realms, transitional justice has proliferated rapidly, with ever-increasing variety in terms of practical rapidly, with ever-increasing variety in terms of practical processes and analytical approaches. The sprawl of transitional justice, however, has not always produced concepts and practices that are theoretically sound and grounded in the empirical realities of the societies in question.
The Ancient Greek notion of agonism, meaning struggle, has been revived in radical legal and political theory to rethematize class conflict and to conceptualize the conditions of possibility of freedom and social transformation in contemporary society. Insisting that what is ultimately at stake in politics are the terms in which social conflict is represented, agonists highlight the importance of the strategic, affective and aesthetic aspects of politics for democratic praxis. This volume examines the implications of this critical perspective for understanding law and considers how law serves either to sustain or curtail the democratic agon. While sharing a critical perspective on the deliberative turn in legal and political theory and its tendency to depoliticize social conflict, the various contributors to this volume diverge in arguing variously for pragmatic, expressivist or strategic conceptions of agonism. In doing so they question the glib assumptions that often underlie a sometimes too easy celebration of conflict as an antidote to de-politicizing consensus. This thought provoking volume will be of interest to students and researchers working in legal and political theory and philosophy.
Since the end of the Cold War, the concept of reconciliation has emerged as a central term of political discourse within societies divided by a history of political violence. Reconciliation has been promoted as a way of reckoning with the legacy of past wrongs while opening the way for community in the future. This book examines the issues of transitional justice in the context of contemporary debates in political theory concerning the nature of 'the political'. Bringing together research on transitional justice and political theory, the author argues that if we are to talk of reconciliation in politics we need to think about it in a fundamentally different way than is commonly presupposed; as agonistic rather than restorative.
The founding of truth commissions, legal tribunals, and public confessionals in places like South Africa, Australia, Yugoslavia, and Chile have attempted to heal wounds and bring about reconciliation in societies divided by a history of violence and conflict. This volume asks how many of the popular conclusions reached by transitional justice studies fall short, or worse, unwittingly perpetuate the very injustices they aim to suture. Though often well intentioned, these approaches generally resolve in an injunction to "move on," as it were; to leave the painful past behind in the name of a conciliatory future. Through collective acts of apology and forgiveness, so the argument goes, reparation and restoration are imparted, and the writhing conflict of the past is substituted for by the overlapping consensus of community. And yet all too often, the authors of this study maintain, the work done in assuaging past discord serves to further debase and politically neutralize especially the victims of abuse in need of reconciliation and repair in the first place. Drawing on a wide range of case studies, from South Africa to Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Rwanda and Australia, the authors argue for an alternative approach to post-conflict thought. In so doing, they find inspiration in the vision of politics rendered by new pluralist, new realist, and especially agonistic political theory. Featuring contributions from both up and coming and well-established scholars this work is essential reading for all those with an interest in restorative justice, conflict resolution and peace studies.
This book examines approaches to reconciliation and peacebuilding in settler colonial, post-conflict, and divided societies. In contrast to current literature, this book provides a broader assessment of reconciliation and conflict transformation by applying a distinctive ‘multi-level’ approach. The analysis provides a unique intervention in the field, one that significantly complicates received notions of reconciliation and transitional justice, and considers conflict transformation across the constitutional, institutional, and relational levels of society. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in South Africa, Northern Ireland, Australia, and Guatemala, the work presents an interdisciplinary study of the complex political challenges facing societies attempting to transition either from violence and authoritarianism to peace and democracy, or from colonialism to post-colonialism. Informed by theories of agonistic democracy, the book conceives of reconciliation as a process that is deeply political, and that prioritises the capacity to retain and develop democratic political contest in societies that have, in other ways, been able to resolve their conflicts. The cases considered suggest that reconciliation is most likely an open-ended process rather than a goal — a process that requires divided societies to pay ongoing attention to reconciliatory efforts at all levels, long after the eyes of the world have moved on from countries where the work of reconciliation is thought to be finished. This book will be of great interest to students of reconciliation, conflict transformation, peacebuilding, transitional justice and IR in general.
South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings can be considered one of the most significant rhetorical events of the late twentieth century. The TRC called language into action, tasking it with promoting understanding among a divided people and facilitating the construction of South Africa’s new democracy. Other books on the TRC and deliberative rhetoric in contemporary South Africa emphasize the achievement of reconciliation during and in the immediate aftermath of the transition from apartheid. From Apartheid to Democracy, in contrast, considers the varied, complex, and enduring effects of the Commission’s rhetorical wager. It is the first book-length study to analyze the TRC through such a lens. Katherine Elizabeth Mack focuses on the dissension and negotiations over difference provoked by the Commission’s process, especially its public airing of victims’ and perpetrators’ truths. She tracks agonistic deliberation (evidenced in the TRC’s public hearings) into works of fiction and photography that extend and challenge the Commission’s assumptions about truth, healing, and reconciliation. Ultimately, Mack demonstrates that while the TRC may not have achieved all of its political goals, its very existence generated valuable deliberation within and beyond its official process.
This book asks how independent commissions helped to overcome difficulties during the implementation phase of the Good Friday Agreement. These independent groups worked to resolve issues which threatened to derail the peace process, including the reform of policing, the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons, the monitoring of ceasefires, dealing with the past conflict, and the issue of human rights. Each chapter provides an in-depth analysis of the work of a different group finding that the commissions engaged in a broad range of activities. Drawing on the lessons of Northern Ireland the book demonstrates the importance of balancing local and international involvement, the inclusion of expertise, and giving sufficient powers to such bodies. This volume appeals to academics and researchers in a range of disciplines such as politics, peace and conflict studies, international relations, and human rights law. It is of interest to readers who are interested in the Northern Ireland peace process and those seeking to understand how third parties can assist in the implementation of peace agreements.
Political violence does not end with the last death. A common feature of mass murder has been the attempt at destroying any memory of victims, with the aim of eliminating them from history. Perpetrators seek not only to eliminate a perceived threat, but also to eradicate any possibility of alternate, competing social and national histories. In his timely and important book, Unchopping a Tree, Ernesto Verdeja develops a critical justification for why transitional justice works. He asks, “What is the balance between punishment and forgiveness? And, “What are the stakes in reconciling?” Employing a normative theory of reconciliation that differs from prevailing approaches, Verdeja outlines a concept that emphasizes the importance of shared notions of moral respect and tolerance among adversaries in transitional societies. Drawing heavily from cases such as reconciliation efforts in Latin America and Africa—and interviews with people involved in such efforts—Verdeja debates how best to envision reconciliation while remaining realistic about the very significant practical obstacles such efforts face Unchopping a Tree addresses the core concept of respect across four different social levels—political, institutional, civil society, and interpersonal—to explain the promise and challenges to securing reconciliation and broader social regeneration.
This book addresses the theoretical underpinnings of the field of transitional justice, something that has hitherto been lacking both in study and practice. With the common goal of clarifying some of the theoretical profiles of transitional justice strategies, the study is organized along crucial intersections evaluating aspects connected to the genealogy, the nature, the scope and the most appropriate methodology for the study of transitional justice. The chapters also take up normative and political considerations pertaining to specific transitional instruments such as war crime tribunals, truth commissions, administrative purges, reparations, and historical commissions. Bringing together some of the most original writings from established experts as well as from promising young scholars in the field, the collection will be an essential resource for researchers, academics and policy-makers in Law, Philosophy, Politics, and Sociology.
This book provides an in-depth narrative of the difficulties facing Territorial Self-Government institutions across Northern Ireland, Bosnia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, and Iraq. It brings together analyses of both prominent and lesser known cases to provide a broad overview of how Territorial Self-Government operates as a conflict management tool in different contexts. Drawing on lessons from these five cases, the author demonstrates the importance of designing and implementing international guarantees to self-government and the associated difficulties. Domestic capacity development must be encouraged and international actors needs to balance the guarantees aimed at providing stability with their wider security and economic concerns. The volume also strongly connects to broader research and theory on conflict management, particularly the role of institutional design and international assistance.