Introduction: colonial grievances, justice and reconciliation

Transitional Justice and Reconciliation: Theory and Practice

EXCERPTED FROM Connecting Peace , Justice , and Reconciliation

Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Empowerment in Transitional Justice

The last decades have seen a rise in the public use of notions from the forgiveness discourse. In the present paper it is examined what role forgiveness, reconciliation and empowerment can play in the practice of transitional justice. On the basis of empirical findings, it is shown that forgiveness is too high an ideal to aim at. The promotion of forgiveness can generate much resistance, and ev...

Reconciliation and Justice after Genocide: A Theoretical Exploration

This article argues that the post-conflict reconciliation process is undermined by the importance given to the retributive form of justice dominating peacebuilding and transitional justice measures. Retributive justice reinforces the division between perpetrator and victim, thus undermining the reconciliation process between antagonistic parties. The so-called objective categories of perpetrato...

Justice from Above or Below? Popular Strategies for Resolving Grievances in Rural China

Research on rural conflict in China suggests that village leaders are sources of trouble and obstacles to justice and that aggrieved villagers have more trust in and receive more satisfactory redress from higher-level solutions than from local solutions. In contrast to this account of ‘‘justice from above,’’ evidence presented in this article from a 2002 survey of almost 3,000 households suppor...