CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION AND RECONCILIATION

Catalog description

(Cross-listed with PACS 60070 )(Slashed with POL 70507 ) Throughout the past 30 years, many states and societies have negotiated complicated transitions from authoritarianism, widespread human rights violations and intractable civil conflict toward various degrees of justice, truth-telling, reconciliation and democracy. Some have done it well and some have not; policy certainly matters in this politically potent arena. For example, political memory and accountability may be swept under the public rug—doing so may, or may not, trip up an experiment in democracy. Alternatively, truth-telling and justice may, or may not, be a springboard for reconciliation, healing and citizen empowerment. In this course, we focus on the policies and mechanisms used to constructively confront impunity and come to terms with past horrors. We analyze various international institutions like war crimes tribunals and truth commissions and various local mechanisms like Rwanda’s Gacaca courts. We also study the differing roles of reparations paid to victims for past injustices, amnesties granted to former government officials, immunity being traded for truth-telling about the past and the impacts of commemoration and memorialization.