ABSTRACT
When does a transition end? This chapter argues that the determination of an end to a transitional or post-conflict stage is itself embedded in a series of debates about the nature of and need for such a stage at all. Those ideas build on and intertwine with a series of legal and policy practices of external rule, international intervention, and accountability, including occupation, emergency, international criminal law, jus post bellum, colonialism, and transitional justice. Contemporary regimes of transitional and external governance share certain assumptions, and sometimes common deformations: claims to temporariness, linear progress narratives, and the association of political contestation with local knowledge and neutrality with international expertise. The chapter suggests that while defining a transitional period may be necessary for purposes of analysis or institutional assistance, it is inevitably a discursive act with significant consequences for both governors and governed. Determining an end to transition will inevitably require establishing the “ends” of transition.
