Theories for / of Transitional Justice

Abstract

Processes of Transitional Justice (TJ) have become very popular amongst practitioners and academics alike. Over the past decade, academic journals and policy think tanks have mushroomed, and hardly a peace deal is struck without the request to establish a truth commission or a war crimes tribunal. Against this backdrop it is almost surprising that the concept of transitional justice remains profoundly under-theorised. The objective of the panel is to bring together scholars who work on transitional justice using either a complementary theoretical approach or developing a theory of transitional justice itself. This might include theoretical approaches to identity construction and social change, critical or feminist theory, democratisation theory, discourse or normative theory, or theories of human rights or transitional justice. Through exploring analytical tools in order to better understand implementations, outcomes and impacts of transitional justice the panel shall address a number of intertwined questions: What theories of justice are being invoked? How can the process of social and political transition be conceptualised? How can the working of power relations be analysed? How can the process of identity constructions be understood? How does transitional justice relate to democratisation? How can the construction of international norms be understood? This shall be explored in purely theoretical as well as empirically sustained academic papers.

Title	Details
Theorising Identity, Justice, and Reconciliation: A Social Learning Model of Transitional Justice	View Paper Details
Ignoring the Embodied Past - Implicit Memory in Transitional Processes	View Paper Details
Intersectionality: A Feminist Theory for Transition	View Paper Details
Extraordinary Justice	View Paper Details