In this article I lay the foundations for a theory of transitional justice built upon the premise that transitional justice is “extraordinary.” I argue that transitional justice is extraordinary in at least two regards. First, the offenses are extraordinary. In contrast to stable state crimes, mass and institutionalized atrocities perpetrated in abusive regimes are committed under the auspices of an abusive paradigm, which is comprised of social norms, a historical teleology, black letter law, and official practices that together excuse or justify violence against members of a targeted group. Second, transitions face the extraordinary challenge of social transformation in the liminal phase “betwixt and between” an abusive past and a peaceful future committed to democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. Others have reached a similar intermediate conclusion, though often for different reasons. However, as Laurel Fletcher and Harvey Weinstein have pointed out, “there is no theoretical foundation that underlies the concept of social repair.” This article fills that lacuna with a novel account of social stability, crisis, and repair centered on “dynamic stability.” Drawing on insights from James Madison, mid-Twentieth Century Anthropologists, social psychology, and contemporary political science, I contend that stability in ordinary states is not a result of consensus fidelity to a particular norm, practice, or institution. Rather, social stability is an artifact of dynamic tension between overlapping oppositions and associations. Abusive paradigms gain dominance when this web collapses under the weight of a bi-polar logic that suppresses stabilizing cross-associations. As I put the point, “behind calls to unity lies the specter of a final solution.” I conclude that tools of transitional justice, including limited criminal trials, truth commissions, and reparations, are best conceived and most coherently justified in light of the need to reconstruct dynamic stability in a post-transitional regime.
