Political Ideologies and Political Identities in Post-Atrocity Transitions

A focus on ideological fanaticism and long-standing hatreds between identity-groups dominates media depictions of genocides, crimes against humanity and other atrocities, yet is widely rejected in academic scholarship. In recent years, however, scholars have increasingly offered more nuanced perspectives on political ideologies and identities, that emphasise the important but multifaceted ways in which they can promote atrocity-perpetration. In this context, there is increasing work being published on how ideologies and identities impact the genesis of violent conflict (Haas 2005; Hammack 2008; Owen 2010), the mobilisation and subsequent behaviour of conflict participants (Eck 2010; Gutiérrez Sanín and Wood 2014; Costalli and Ruggeri 2015; Hafez 2017; Wood and Thomas 2017), the promotion or restraint of atrocities against civilians (Thaler 2012; Straus 2015; Oppenheim and Weintraub 2017) and the various manifestations these take at the macro and micro levels. Considerably less studied, however, is the role that political ideologies and identities developed before and during conflict play in the post-atrocity transition. Atrocities always, however, leave longstanding scars on the social landscape of affected countries, and often leave ideological legacies which may importantly influence society’s subsequent political institutions, practices and culture (see, for example: Reyntjens 2016; Brett 2016). As such, this joint sessions workshop aims to approach following overarching question: How do political ideologies and political identities affect the trajectories of post-atrocity transitions? In order to answer this broader question, following sub-questions are of particular interest to the workshop: - Why are certain conflict ideologies that were prevalent during past atrocities continue to be influential during post-atrocity transitions while others are dropped? Why do certain new (or adapted) ideologies emerge? - How do shifts in ideologies occur and what consequences do they have for political action? - How are political identities (re-)constructed in post-atrocity transition periods and what consequences to they have for political action? - What types of trajectories are there in post-atrocity transition periods and how are these influenced by ideologies and identities? - How do various types of trajectories, in turn, create, stabilise, unsettle certain ideologies and identities? As such, this workshop seeks to incorporate a temporal dimension to the topic of political ideologies and identities in post-atrocity transitions, taking under scrutiny not just the transitions themselves, but the trajectories they have taken out of the violence itself and how the ideologies and identities transform themselves, remain the same or are replaced within this context and what implications this has. This workshop will thus contribute to a number of key current literatures in social scientific research on ideas, identity and conflict. ♣ First, the workshop will contribute to the rapid recent growth of research on political ideology, especially concerning the still understudied dynamics of ideological change. Whilst recent ideology research has devoted extensive attention to the internal conceptual content of ideologies (Freeden et al. 2013), and the psychological drivers that draw individuals to specific ideologies (Jost et al. 2003; Amodio et al. 2007; Jost et al. 2009a; Jost et al. 2009b), remarkably little work comparatively examines the determinants of broader ideological change in society at large (though see: van Dijk 1998; Howarth et al. 2000; Nyseth Brehm 2016). A common assumption in scholarship is that sudden political ‘shocks’, including the start or end of violent conflicts, are often key drivers of rapid ideological change (Legro 2005; Owen 2010; Costalli and Ruggeri 2015, 125-126). But concrete research on such processes of change, especially after conflict and atrocity, remains extremely limited. By systematically and comparatively examining how ideologies evolve during atrocities, conflict, and post-conflict reconstruction, we will shed light on the dynamics of ideological change in contexts of especially high political stakes. ♣ Second, the workshop will make similar contributions to the extensive literature on identity, conflict and post-conflict reconstruction. In recent research, scholars have increasingly emphasised the way in which identities evolve during conflict, as fluid identity categories are activated, mobilised, and radicalised under conditions of crisis and threat (Fearon and Laitin 2000; Kalyvas 2003). A key implication is that the factors that sustain conflict – and which need to be addressed in conflict resolution and subsequent peacebuilding – are therefore often distinct from the original causes of the conflict. This applies to post-atrocity peacebuilding and transitional justice as much as to post-conflict situations more generally, yet the implications of identity mobilisation within atrocity situations for the post-conflict context specifically has received limited study. The workshop will remedy this lack, and do so through engagement with interdisciplinary work on identity and violence from genocide studies, conflict studies, political psychology and economics (Kuran 1998; Waller 2007; Hammack 2008; Moshman 2011; Hogg 2014). ♣ Third, the workshop will contribute to the burgeoning literature on post-atrocity transitional justice, augmenting it by this explicit perspective on ideologies and identities. Influential work in research transitional justice in deeply divided societies exists in which the key role of identity politics is emphasised (Aiken 2014a; Aiken 2014b; Arthur 2011; Mac Ginty 2017), although less attention has been paid to the role of atrocity-driven ideologies in these contexts. Moreover, this workshop will be able to add insight on under-researched questions relating to precisely which ideologies and identities become prominent in post-atrocity societies and the transitional justice processes that emerge here, how these draw on previous ideologies and identities that were salient during the atrocities themselves, as well as how transitional justice processes themselves impact, unsettle or stabilise these ideologies and atrocities. ♣ Fourth, and finally, the workshop will contribute to the memory turn in political science research. Recent research trajectories have highlighted the contentious nature of post-atrocity memory politics, particularly highlighting how identities are manipulated for political gain, drawing on various extant and (re-)created political identities (Bernhard and Kubik 2014; Mannergren Selimovic 2013; Moll 2013; Ramet 2013). In the context of this workshop, we will contribute to refining how these identities tie into past trajectories, and also relate them to atrocity ideologies. As such, this also contributes to a temporally sensitive perspective on post-atrocity societies (see Mueller-Hirth and Rios Oyola 2018). The workshop will incorporate insights from various different sub-disciplines of political science, including political sociology, political psychology, comparative studies of violence, transitions and state-building, as well as transitional justice and memory studies. Methodologically, we welcome a diversity of approaches, including qualitative, quantitative or mixed-methods work, as well as conceptual papers. To ensure that a constructive discussion between these diverse papers can emerge, we will ensure that papers are written in a way that is comprehensible to other scholars with different methodological backgrounds, allowing open discussions that draw on and forward the insights from various methodological corners of political science. Bibliography Aiken, Nevin T. 2014a. Identity, Reconciliation and Transitional Justice: Overcoming Intractability in Divided Societies. Abingdon: Routledge. Aiken, Nevin T. 2014b. Rethinking reconciliation in divided societies. A social learning theory of transitional justice. In: Buckley-Zistel, S., Beck, T. K., Braun, C. & Mieth, F. (eds.) Transitional Justice Theories. Abingdon: Routledge. Amodio, David M., Jost, John T., Master, Sarah L. & Yee, Cindy M. 2007. 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