Post‐Authoritarian State Formation in Argentina: Transitional Justice as the Accumulation of Symbolic Power

Abstract

Looking at the transitions to democracy in Latin America during the late 20 th century, a number of scholars observed that human rights and transitional justice had become the central legitimizing axis of the new, post-authoritarian order. But the question of how human rights and transitional justice measures became such powerful sources of legitimacy in the first place was left unexplored. In this article I use Bourdieu's concept of symbolic capital along with Mara Loveman's explanation of the accumulation of this capital to explain how transitional justice came to function as a form of post-authoritarian state formation in Argentina.

The Logic of Transitional Justice and State Repression: The Effects of Human Rights Prosecutions in Post-Conflict States

“…Criminal accountability is a key pillar of transitional justice efforts that aim to address a legacy of gross human rights abuses. On one view, trials help to deter human rights violations by signaling that future violators will be reckoned with (Akhavan 2009; Jo and Simmons 2016; Kim and Sikkink 2010, 2012) or challenging the social acceptability of violence (Carmody 2017; Minow 2008; Osiel 1997). Research on democratizing states shows that domestic prosecutions are associated with reduced repression (e.g., Dancy et al 2019; Kim and Sikkink 2010; Sikkink and Walling 2007), whereas amnesties encourage criminal behavior by state security forces (Trejo, Albarracín, and Tiscornia 2018).…”

Truth Commission Impact on Policy, Courts, and Society

“…The notion that some truth commissions have sought to depoliticize political violence has some merits, too. The prologue to the Argentinian commission's final paper still faces criticism for promoting the two-demons theory, i.e., that the country was facing violence from the left and from the right on the eve of the coup-an accusation many commissioners have publicly denied over the years (Carmody 2016, Stockwell 2014). Chile's 1990 commission shied away from judging whether the 1973 military coup and the neoliberal restructuring during the military regime were justified.…”