Designing truth: Facilitating perpetrator testimony at truth commissions

Truth commissions aim to promote transparency, accountability, and reconciliation by compiling detailed narratives of political violence. To achieve this end, both victims and perpetrators of abuses must testify. Yet, little is known about how commissions can be designed to facilitate perpetrator testimony. This article develops a theory of perpetrator participation in truth commissions, with a focus on institutional design. The article then evaluates the effectiveness of four design features—amnesties, subpoena powers, dual-party agreements, and spiritual frameworks—in facilitating perpetrator testimony in the truth commissions in Sierra Leone, South Africa, and Timor-Leste. The analysis indicates that the theoretical constructs developed are present, functional, and influential for perpetrator participation in the three commissions. And, while no individual design feature is essential, the case studies reveal that perpetrator participation may not be forthcoming without a robust dual-party agreement and/or a resonant spiritual framework. This underscores the importance of normative foundations for perpetrators’ engagement with commissions. Crucially, though advantageous features may be present, the criteria required for them to function may not be met, resulting in no effect or a negative effect on participation.     

Speaking the truth

Suspicion regarding the notion of truth is a characteristic feature of much contemporary thought. Often this suspicion is based in a view that takes truth to be a notion associated with a discredited view of knowledge or with an oppressive and exclusionary politics. That the very possibility of knowledge, and so of our access to the truth, can be put in question and that truth itself always operates within a political dimension are not, of course, claims that can be denied. Nor can it be denied that knowledge, truth and power are closely tied together. But these considerations should prompt us to a reappraisal of the notion of truth that sees it as more, not less, significant. This paper is an attempt to begin such a reappraisal and to attend, not merely to the truth. Speaking the truth is not something the successful achievement of which can, in every case, be guaranteed in advance; yet neither is it something that we can abandon or ignore.     

实践与真理的关系

实践与认识是对立的统一体，实践是认识的来源和基础，又是认识的目的，人们要想不断获得新的认识，正确地认识客观事物，找到真理，必须通过实践。实践是检验认识真理的根本手段，但由于实践本身的变化性，相对性，特别是在阶级社会里，对立的双方会进行完全相反的实践，因此如何检验实践却需要一个标准。而只有真理本身是客观的，确定的，实践正确与否要由真理来判断，而真理又是具体的，相对的，指导实践的真理也是相对真理，只有在相对真理指导下进行实践才能产生新的更多的真理认识，实现相对真理到绝对真理的转化。     

The search for the centre: Pivot parties in West European party systems

The central question is whether or not in multiparty systems the so‐called parties of the ‘centre’ can be defined and observed in isolation. We start from the assumption that party‐life in the centre‐space of a political system has distinctive features. Centre parties must therefore be conceptualised and analysed as phenomena sui generis and do not belong to either the left‐wing or the right‐wing of a party system. The second assumption is that every party in a parliamentary democracy is a vote seeking and policy guided actor. This means that a centre party depends on its capacity to compete with both ‘wings’ of a party system whilst occupying the centre‐space. It is then capable of becoming the ‘pivot’ of the system: its ‘centrality’ and ‘dominance’ represent ideological distinctiveness and electoral/legislative weight. The cross‐national analysis demonstrates that only a few parties are genuine pivot parties. The paper concludes with a discussion about the issue whether or not the existence of a pivot party is a blessing in disguise for the working of a democracy.     

French Enlightenment: truth and life

This paper considers the relations of truth, life and norm in the work of Georges Canguilhem and Michel Foucault argued that in France it was in the philosophy of science that one finds the clearest formulations of the problems of rationality and the sovereignty of reason. This distintive confrontation can be termed French Modern. For Canguilhem, an ontological and existential pathos arose from the fact that living beings were fated to struggle in the face of circumstances. For Foucault, this ontology became historical and political. For both, the key question was the relationship between life itself and the understanding of life. The paper concludes by reflecting upon some implications of the ways in which the relation between life and lived experience is posed today.     

The experimental search for free riders: Some reflections and observations

Public Choice - The presence of the incentive to free ride in ‘pure situations’ has not heretofore been contested, and we would have expected that choice settings could be designed in...     

The power not to tax: A search for effective controls

Although the primary purpose of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 was to gain greater congressional control over federal spending, the act also represented a small but significant step toward controlling the substantial financial commitments made through the numerous exclusions, deductions, and credits in the federal income tax. In the Budget Act Congress, for the first time, recognized and defined these “tax expenditures” and adopted procedures for reviewing them. But tax expenditure budgeting has not had the beneficial effect that some had hoped, mainly because the 1974 effort failed to take adequate account of the organizational structure of Congress and of the political character of its decision-making. But these weaknesses can be overcome.     

The Philippines: In search of identity

The Philippines: A Singular and a Plural Place, (second edition) by David Joel Steinberg. Westview Press, Oxford and Boulder Co. 1990, xiv + 224 pp. £11.95 paperback. ISBN 0–8133–0766‐X;

Rebellion and Repression in the Philippines, by Richard J. Kessler. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1989. xii+227 pp. £22.50 ($30.00). ISBN 0–300–04406–2;

Red Revolution: Inside the Philippine Guerrilla Movement, by Gregg R. Jones. Westview Press, Boulder Co. and London, 1990. xxii+360 pp. £10.50 paperback. ISBN 0–8733–0877–1;

The Philippine Revolution: The Leader's View, by Jose Maria Sison with Rainer Werning. Taylor and Francis, New York and London, 1989. xxix + 241 pp. £25 cloth, £11 paperback. ISBN 0–8448–1580–2 and 0–8448–1581–0.     

The power to make war: Congress' search for an effective role

In the heat of Vietnam and Watergate, Congress sought to develop a more effective role in decisions about the use of the armed forces in combat or in potential combat situations. The War Powers Resolution passed in November 1973 was the solution Congress devised to this problem. But the War Powers Resolution has fallen well short of the hoped-for partnership; the most momentous issue to confront the nation-to wage war or not to wage war-still does not effectively engage Congress. Whether such a role is possible for Congress in a system that is built on checks and balances is quite uncertain. Some improvements over the present situation are proposed; but it remains evident that the power to make war will rest primarily in the office of the president.     

The new public management paradigm and the search for democratic accountability

Can we permit empowered, responsive civil servants to make decisions and be innovative and still have democratic accountability? This important question haunts those who would advocate a “new public management.” The proponents of a new public management paradigm emphasize performance the ability of their strategy to produce results. But they cannot ignore the troubling question of political accountability. They must develop a process that not only permits public managers to produce better results but also provides accountability to a democratic electorate.