Transitional justice has emerged to address victims' needs as a means of restoring relations broken by violence. Yet we know little about victims' attitudes towards different transitional justice mechanisms. Why do some victims prioritize retributive justice while others favor other forms of dealing with the violent past? What determines victims' attitudes towards transitional justice policies? To address these questions, we offer a new theoretical framework that draws upon recent insights from the field of evolutionary psychology and links both war exposure and postwar environments to transitional justice preferences. We argue that both past experiences of wartime violence and present-day social interdependence with perpetrators impact transitional justice preferences, but in divergent ways (resulting in greater support for retributive vs. restorative justice measures, respectively). To test our framework, we rely upon a 2013 representative survey of 1,007 respondents focusing on general population attitudes towards transitional justice in Bosnia two decades after the implementation of the Dayton Accords. Specifically, we examine the impact of displacement, return to prewar homes, loss of property, loss of a loved one, physical injury, imprisonment, and torture on attitudes towards transitional justice. On the whole, our findings confirm our two main hypotheses: Exposure to direct violence and losses is associated with more support for retributive justice measures, while greater present-day interdependence with perpetrators is associated with more support for restorative justice measures. While acknowledging the legacy of wartime violence, we highlight the importance of the postwar context and institutional mechanisms that support victims in reconstructing their lives.KEY WORDS: exposure to violence, transitional justice, displacement, Bosnia, retributive justice, restorative justice, victimhoodThe war of 1992-95 left a deep trauma in Bosnian society as the country was subjected to an armed campaign characterized by ethnic cleansing and the genocide in Srebenica unprecedented for 345 0162-895X
This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link Cultures of Rioting and Anti-Systemic Politics in Southern Europe Katia Andronikidou and Iosif KovrasWest European Politics, 35(4), 707-725. AbstractThe article investigates why despite similar background conditions in Greece and Spain, the former country has been characterized by highly visible, fringe, anti-system politics and street riots, while similar phenomena are rare in Spain. Although the article's focal point is the eruption of the December 2008 riots in Athens, it sheds light on the two countries' diverse social reactions to the sovereign debt crisis. Deploying the tool of media framing, it argues that historical legacies and political cultures matter. In the Greek case, the transition to democracy shaped a political 'culture of sympathy' towards acts of resistance to the state, a culture that has been institutionalized since the mid-1970s.Keywords: Riots, Greece, Spain, Political Culture, Framing, Greek RiotsOn December 6, 2008, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, a 15-year-old schoolboy, was shot dead by a policeman in Exarchia, a bohemian district of Athens which hosts sizeable anarchist and libertarian communities. The news of the incident spread quickly among young people who used new technologies, such as blogs, websites and SMS, to call for a forceful reaction. The rioting that followed was of unprecedented magnitude. Schoolboys, students, migrants, anarchists and members of extra-parliamentary radical left groups were among the rioters. Riots lasted several days; hundreds of petrol bombs were thrown at the police, banks and state buildings, and there were numerous incidents of looting and violence. The rioters even looted the shop of the parents of the schoolboy shot by the police (Kathimerini 9/12/2008).
The families of the disappeared have long struggled to uncover the truth about their missing relatives. In so doing, their mobilization has shaped central transitional justice norms and institutions, as this ground-breaking work demonstrates. Kovras combines a new global database with the systematic analysis of four challenging case studies - Lebanon, Cyprus, South Africa and Chile - each representative of a different approach to transitional justice. These studies reveal how variations in transitional justice policies addressing the disappeared occur: explaining why victims' groups in some countries are caught in silence, while others bring perpetrators to account. Conceiving of transitional justice as a dynamic process, Kovras traces the different phases of truth recovery in post-transitional societies, giving substance not only to the 'why' but also the 'when' and 'how' of this kind of campaign against impunity. This book is essential reading for all those interested in the development of transitional justice and human rights.
ABSTRACT. The fate of missing persons is a central issue in postconflict societies facing truth recovery and human rights dilemmas. Despite widespread public sympathy towards relatives, societies emerging from conflict often defer the recovery of missing for decades. More paradoxically, in post-1974 Cyprus, the official authorities delayed unilateral exhumations of victims buried within cemeteries in their own jurisdiction. Analysis of official post1974 discourses reveals a Greek-Cypriot consensus to emphasise the issue as one of Turkish aggression, thus downplaying in-group responsibilities and the legacy of intra-communal violence. We compare the experience of Cyprus with other postconflict societies such as Spain, Northern Ireland, and Mozambique and explore the linkages between institutions and beliefs about transitional justice. We argue that elite consensus initiates and facilitates the transition to democracy but often leads to the institutionalisation of groups opposing truth recovery even for in-group members.KEY WORDS: Cyprus; elite framing; missing persons; political learning; truth recovery; spoilers All the missing persons' families have suffered regardless of their ethnic origins. They might be Turkish Cypriots, Greek Cypriots, Armenians, or they might be Israelis, Palestinians, Argentineans, Vietnamese, or in Bosnia-Herzegovina they might be Serbs, Bosnians or any other ethnic origin. All families had similar fate and suffering dreams and nightmares. All these missing persons' families are in a way related. 1In deeply divided societies, groups tend to mobilise widespread sympathy for victims of conflict including those persons kidnapped or missing and their families left behind without an answer to their fate. Recovery of missing persons also ranks high on the international agenda as illustrated in the high-
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.