ABSTRACT
In this chapter I examine the relationship between love and political reconciliation. My focus is on political reconciliation in the context of societies emerging from extended periods of conflict and/or repression in which widespread violations of human rights occurred. In the first section I provide an overview of political reconciliation, focusing in particular on the sense of reconciliation as the repairing of damaged relationships. My discussion highlights the silence in the literature on political reconciliation about love, and possible reasons for excluding love from discussion of reconciliation. The second section turns to love, arguing that we can reinterpret many of the requirements for political reconciliation recognized in the literature as requirements to cultivate love among those previously in conflict and engaging on pervasively unequal terms for interaction.
