Reparative development: re-conceptualising reparations in transitional justice processes

Reparations are increasingly seen as potential avenues to address the socioeconomic structural injustices that have affected victims during conflict or authoritarian rule. Scholars, however, have identified serious limitations in these policies, emanating from faulty design, political reluctance, financial limitations and uneven implementation. This article proposes a reconceptualisation of reparation policies by embedding them in a framework of reparative development. A theory of reparative development is outlined by discussing how principles emanating from key rulings of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights can be articulated to provide a conceptual link between transitional justice and development. This article argues that restitution should consider not only past damages but also lost life opportunities. Reparations should be both individual- and community-based, taking into account the supplemental policy actions required to make them both effective and sensitive to existing human insecurities. Finally, they need to involve local and grassroots organisations in their implementation.     

Bringing in the grassroots: transitional justice in Zimbabwe

Since 2008, the Government of Zimbabwe, the international community and non-governmental organisations have all advocated the need for transitional justice in Zimbabwe. Yet, few initiatives have emerged. This article suggests that local communities could be enabled to help fill this policy vacuum. The results of a pilot research project are presented, where 1,400 victims of violence were engaged. The data collected highlights a clear demand for justice at the grassroots, but an educational input is necessary and transitional justice capacity needs to be built. Currently unstructured and unorganised opinions on how to cope with past violence need to be translated into practical programmes of action. The article asserts that such leadership, stimulated from the grassroots, represents a potential strategy capable of challenging the existing policy vacuum. Even if this challenge is initially rebuffed, it is contended that such an input still remains vital for the longer term. An opportunity currently exists to deepen an understanding of transitional justice in Zimbabwe which will enable community groups to initiate and respond to Zimbabwe's transitional justice processes when the national political environment becomes more receptive to this need.     

Contestation and resistance: the politics of and around transitional justice in Nepal

The shift to adopting holistic approaches in transitional justice indicates an intention to pay (greater) attention to politics in transitional justice. However, transitional justice actors frequently encounter difficulties in doing so, misread politics and misconstrue where to locate it in post-conflict contexts. Using research from Nepal I argue that there is considerable political activity taking place that challenges transitional justice on multiple scales. This research demonstrates that actors frequently seek to advance their interests and make claims utilising the process, institutions and language of transitional justice. In particular, I draw upon resistance literature and contentious politics literature to elucidate the complex relationships and interactions at the local and national level, which are often omitted from discussions about transitional justice in Nepal. Accordingly, I argue it is more useful to consider actors’ actions in relation to transitional justice on a continuum where there is co-option, resistance, contestation and compliance with a wide range of variation within each.     

Breaking the cycle of violence: applying conflict sensitivity to transitional justice

The legacies of mass violence can, if left unaddressed, fuel future conflicts. Transitional justice seeks to address the legacies of large-scale past abuses. Despite the sensitive nature of transitional justice and recognition that initiatives can adversely influence conflict-affected contexts, there has been limited attempt to extend the application of conflict sensitivity to transitional justice. Conflict sensitivity is an approach and tool to help aid actors to understand the unintended consequences of aid and to act to minimise harm and achieve positive outcomes. Transitional justice initiatives can exacerbate tensions by replicating existing tensions; introducing resources that become a struggle for control; or challenging power and vested interests. This article argues that conflict sensitivity should be applied to transitional justice; and identifies tools and factors that could contribute to conflict sensitive transitional justice. They include promoting: broad-based participation; resonance with local actors; social cohesion; public outreach; collaboration with other sectors; and appropriate sequencing.     

Authoritarian legacies,transitional justice and state crisis in Portugal's democratization

The nature of the Portuguese transition to democracy and the consequent state crises created a ‘window of opportunity’ in which the ‘reaction to the past’ was much stronger in Portugal than in the other Southern European transitions. The transition's powerful dynamic in itself served to constitute a legacy for the consolidation of democracy. This article analyses how the nature of the transition affected the legacy of authoritarianism superseding and transmuting that regime's impact on the ‘quality’ of Portugal's democracy, and illustrating how the majority of ‘authoritarian legacies’ were more a result of the nature of the transition than they were of the authoritarian regime.     

Social repair in divided societies: integrating a coexistence lens into transitional justice

This paper explores the importance of integrating a coexistence lens into transitional justice theory and practice. Transitional justice seeks to address a legacy of large-scale past abuses. In societies that have suffered from violent intergroup conflict, this legacy includes divided communities and widespread distrust and fear of the ‘other’. Transitional justice processes and mechanisms, however, are unlikely to repair intergroup relationships, transform communities or eliminate tensions in the absence of specific attention to promote coexistence. The field of coexistence provides a framework for thinking about intergroup relations and interdependence. Coexistence initiatives—such as dialogue facilitation, intergroup projects and associations aimed at achieving shared goals, and media campaigns designed to reframe the ‘other’—are essential to restoring trust, transforming perceptions and rebuilding relationships. Looking at countries that have experienced violent intergroup conflict, in particular Bosnia and Herzegovina, the paper provides examples of coexistence initiatives that have achieved successes in changing attitudes, repairing relationships and strengthening communities—and discusses their potential to contribute to transitional justice processes and mechanisms.     

Strategic silence as a third way. Political parties and transitional justice

How do political parties react to transitional justice (TJ) processes? Do they always have to choose between supporting and rejecting the punishment of the outgoing elite and their collaborators? While Huntington emphasized the existence of two major approaches to TJ – for and against – this article argues there is a third way that has been relatively understudied – strategic silence. It will be argued that, under certain conditions, political calculations can lead to the adoption of silence as a deliberate strategy by certain political actors in TJ processes. Focusing on the Portuguese case (1974–1976), the article explores why, and under what conditions, silence is perceived as the best strategy in dealing with the past following the defeat or breakdown of an authoritarian regime.     

Deterritorialisation: Reconceptualising Development in the Pacific Islands

Development, as an idea and an industry, is premised on the assumption that all states have the ability to raise the material wellbeing of citizens. For many this appears to be working but the ideal is problematic for a sub-set of the world's smallest countries: the Pacific Island states. These states have sought to develop conventional export trade-based economies but are disadvantaged in this, and in service sector development, by a combination of well-known factors, including resource bases, size and location. By default, migration has become a least-worst development option for many island peoples and governments, involving engagement with the periphery and contributing to income generation and poverty alleviation. This deterritorialisation presents an alternative to mainstream development theory and practice in its current state-centric form, and emphasises the emerging significance of non-state approaches to development.     

Reassessing the focus of transitional justice: the need to move structural and cultural violence to the centre

After over six decades of evolution, transitional justice remains focused on courts and commissions, evidenced by the allocation of international attention and resources. This is understandable given that courts and commissions are ideal platforms to hold perpetrators to account. While violent individuals and events can be addressed through courts and commission, what cannot be adequately addressed is the structural and cultural violence that makes mass atrocities possible, and remains intact in spite of truth and accountability. Structural and cultural violence manifests as systemic vulnerability and dehumanization, and it is this type of built-in violence that continues to plague countries where transitional justice has been pursued, for example the criminalization and repression of communities in South Africa, or the forced evictions that occur daily throughout Cambodia. This article argues that it is this type of violence which should become the central focus of transitional justice.     

Trials,lustration, and clean elections: the uneven effects of transitional justice mechanisms on electoral manipulation

Transitional justice aims to promote democratization, but previous research has found that it has mixed effects. We address this puzzle by focussing on how transitional justice affects a necessary condition for democracy: clean elections. We test for the effects of four transitional justice mechanisms – truth commissions, lustration policies, amnesties, and trials – on two different types of electoral manipulation, using data from 187 post-transition elections held in 63 countries around the world from 1980 to 2004. We find that post-transition trials limit illegal forms of electoral manipulation, such as vote-buying and falsification of results, but have no effect on legal forms of manipulation. By contrast, lustration policies limit legal manipulation tactics, like intimidation and harassment of opponents by the security services, but do not affect illegal tactics. By showing that different aspects of transitional justice can have varying influence on electoral integrity, this project improves understanding of the mechanisms that link transitional justice and democratization.     

Human Security as Global Security: Reconceptualising Strategic Studies

The article argues that global security should be seen as synonymous with human security, and that strategic studies should be located within that broader rubric. Mounting such an argument means meeting the charge of those who see the broader construction of strategic studies as vague and meaningless, and as detracting from the ability to make good policy. The article attempts, therefore, to map human security in as inclusive and systematic a way as possible. It attempts to show that the concept is neither vague nor meaningless, and is suitable, therefore, to be the basis for a comprehensive account of global security.     

Leading learning and change from the middle: Reconceptualising strategy's purpose,content, and measures

When implementing a transformational global vision and mission, three problems typically confront international NGOs: aligning different levels of planning and strategy; balancing global analysis and priorities against local realities; and identifying measures that both indicate progress and promote and encourage innovation. This article reports on the efforts of CARE International's Latin America Regional Management Unit to address these problems by introducing 'reversals' to common strategic planning principles and processes. It shows middle managers in NGOs how they can lead 'from the middle', and considers 'the region' to be the nexus enabling an organisation to change and learn across multiple hierarchical levels.     

波兰转轨时期中小企业发展影响因素分析:外部环境视角

经济转轨以来,中小企业在波兰经济发展中发挥着重要的作用。本文从波兰中小企业发展的外部环境,即政府政策和程序、社会经济因素、创业和企业技能环境、对中小企业的金融支持和非金融支持等方面入手,分析了转轨时期波兰中小企业发展的外部环境影响因素。研究发现,外部环境对波兰中小企业的良好发展影响巨大,但有待进一步改善。     

Prevention,knowledge, justice: Robert Nozick and counterterrorism

ABSTRACT

This article explores questions of justice and moral permissibility of state action in counterterrorism through Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Using the case of the Berlin attack in December of 2016 and the ensuing political debate over whether potential terrorists could be put into preventive custody as an illustrative example, it engages Nozick’s argument on prevention, knowledge and justice. In Nozick’s fierce defence of individual rights, the state comes into being as an aggregate of individuals and their inviolable rights, and thus possesses no moral legitimacy of its own. Individual rights must therefore not be violated for the sake of common goods. In conjunction with his emphasis on free will and the ensuing unpredictability of human decision-making, the article highlights the Nozickian position as a powerful account against the justification of preventive custody, thereby providing a moral “fail-safe” in counterterrorism discourses that build on just war theory and utilitarianism.     

Custom,contestation and co-operation: peace and justice promotion in Somaliland

This article explores alternatives to prevailing state-centric and legalistic approaches to supporting local security and access to justice. It does so through a case study of an initiative developed by an international NGO in partnership with a group of traditional authorities in Somaliland. The initiative aimed at enhancing local security and access to justice, drawing on customary conflict resolution mechanisms and everyday strategies of self-securing. At the same time, the initiative was shaped by international input and liberal notions of human rights and human security. This approach entailed a renegotiation of both local ordering and international discourse. Drawing on our fieldwork, we examine the initiative as it has evolved since 2003, and discuss what it suggests in terms of prospects for international support to ‘non-state’ actors. In particular, the article draws attention to the potential of working with everyday local practices to enable social change rather than focusing narrowly on reforming legal systems (whether state or customary).