ABSTRACT

Transitional Justice Theories is the first volume to approach the politically sensitive subject of post-conflict or post-authoritarian justice from a theoretical perspective. It combines contributions from distinguished scholars and practitioners as well as from emerging academics from different disciplines and provides an overview of conceptual approaches to the field. The volume seeks to refine our understanding of transitional justice by exploring often unarticulated assumptions that guide discourse and practice. To this end, it offers a wide selection of approaches from various theoretical traditions ranging from normative theory to critical theory. In their individual chapters, the authors explore the concept of transitional justice itself and its foundations, such as reconciliation, memory, and truth, as well as intersections, such as reparations, peace building, and norm compliance.

This book will be of particular interest for scholars and students of law, peace and conflict studies, and human rights studies. Even though highly theoretical, the chapters provide an easy read for a wide audience including readers not familiar with theoretical investigations. 

part |108 pages

Theorising transitional justice

chapter |26 pages

Rethinking reconciliation in divided societies

A social learning theory of transitional justice 1

chapter |20 pages

Political liberalism after mass violence

John Rawls and a ‘theory' of transitional justice

chapter |20 pages

The vertical and horizontal expansion of transitional justice

Explanations and implications for a contested field

part |97 pages

Exploring the limits of transitional justice

chapter |17 pages

Bargaining justice

A theory of transitional justice compliance

chapter |19 pages

Narrative truths

On the construction of the past in truth commissions

chapter |17 pages

Forgetting the embodied past

Body memory in transitional justice