ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors present two main objectives – one conceptual, the other empirical – enabling to theorise the nature of compromise after conflict, and to study it empirically in post-conflict societies. Public value research on peace processes helps societies emerging out of conflict to make sense of themselves, helps them respond to rapid social changes provoked by peace, and to understand the structural factors that privilege some groups and disadvantage others in peace processes. The authors aim to establish the different emotions wrapped up with feelings of compromise, as well as the kinds of social relationships on which it was premised and which it entailed. They provide an operational starting point that compromise amongst victims-perpetrators should be understood as a process that involves hope-anticipation of the future, forgiveness-redemption for perpetrators and forms of memory-remembrance of the conflict that transcend divided memories.
