How did civil society function as a locus for reconciliation initiatives since the beginning of the 20th century? The essays in this volume challenge the conventional understanding of reconciliation as a benign state-driven process. They explore how a range of civil society actors - from Turkish intellectuals apologizing for the Armenian Genocide to religious organizations working towards the improvement of Franco-German relations - have confronted and coped with the past. These studies offer a critical perspective on local and transnational reconciliation acts by questioning the extent to which speech became an alternative to silence, remembrance to forgetting, engagement to oblivion.

Binaifer Nowrojee and Regan Ralph.

This book aims to bridge the gap between what are generally referred to as ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ approaches to peacebuilding. After the experience of a physical and psychological trauma, the period of individual healing and recovery is intertwined with political and social reconciliation. The prospects for social and political reconciliation are undermined when a ‘top-down’ approach is favoured over the ‘bottom-up strategy’- the prioritization of structural stability over societal well-being. Peacebuilding, Memory and Reconciliation explores the inextricable link between psychological recovery and socio-political reconciliation, and the political issues that dominate this relationship. Through an examination of the construction of social narratives about or for peace, the text offers a new perspective on peacebuilding, which challenges and questions the very nature of the dichotomy between ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ approaches. This book will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, peace and conflict studies, social psychology, political science and IR in general.

One of the most important political and ethical questions faced during a political transition from authoritarian or totalitarian to democratic rule is how to deal with legacies of repression. Indeed, some of the most fundamental questions regarding law, morality and politics are raised at such times, as societies look back to understand how they lost their moral and political compass, failing to contain violence and promote the values of tolerance and peace. The Politics of Memory sheds light on this important aspect of transitional politics, assessing how Portugal, Spain, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Germany after reunification, Russia, the Southern Cone of Latin America and Central America, as well as South Africa, have confronted legacies of repression. The book examines the presence - or absence - of three types of official efforts to come to terms with the past: truth commissions, trials and amnesties, and purges. In addition, it looks at unofficial initiatives emerging from within society, usually involving human rights organisations (HROs), churches or political parties. Where relevant, it also examines the 'politics of memory,' whereby societies re-work the past in an effort to come to terms with it, both during the transitions and long after official transitional policies have been implemented or forgotten. The book also assesses the significance of forms of reckoning with the past for a process of democratization or democratic deepening. It also focuses on the role of international actors in such processes, as external players are becoming increasingly influential in shaping national policy where human rights are concerned.

In the last five to ten years, pressure for political liberalisation, and the growth of civil society and independent media, inside Arab countries have prompted the debate about violent events in the postcolonial period. This book features studies of six Arab countries in which legacies of political violence have been challenged through various initiatives to promote "truth-telling" and transitional justice. The analysis departs from a liberal, teleological understanding of truth and reconciliation as a linear process from trauma through memory to national healing. Instead, the articles highlight how the interplay between state-orchestrated initiatives (such as Truth and Reconciliation committees and ministerial committees); civil society actors (including former political prisoners, investigative journalists and NGOs); and external actors (such as transnational NGOs, state sponsored dialogue initiatives, the UN and the EU) is creating a new political field. The book examines the extent to which this field challenges the Arab nation-state’s monopoly on history and violence, and asks whether public narratives of violence, memory and justice consolidate or challenge political legitimacy of current regimes. This book was published as a special issue of Mediterranean Politics.

The dynamics of transnational memory play a central role in modern politics, from postsocialist efforts at transitional justice to the global legacies of colonialism. Yet, the relatively young subfield of transnational memory studies remains underdeveloped and fractured across numerous disciplines, even as nascent, boundary-crossing theories on topics such as multi-vocal, traveling, or entangled remembrance suggest new ways of negotiating difficult political questions. This volume brings together theoretical and practical considerations to provide transnational memory scholars with an interdisciplinary investigation into agency—the “who” and the “how” of cross-border commemoration that motivates activists and fascinates observers.

Reconceiving Civil Society and Transitional Justice examines the role of civil society in transitional justice, exploring the forms of civil society that are enabled or disabled by transitional justice processes and the forms of transitional justice activity that are enabled and disabled by civil society actors. Although civil society organisations play an integral role in the pursuit of transitional justice in conflict-affected societies, the literature lacks a comprehensive conceptualisation of the diversity and complexity of these roles. This reflects the degree to which dominant approaches to transitional justice focus on liberal-legal justice strategies and international human rights norms. In this context, civil society organisations are perceived as intermediaries who are thought to advocate for and support formal, liberal transitional justice processes. The contributions to this volume demonstrate that the reality is more complicated; civil society can – and does – play important roles in enabling formal transitional justice processes, but it can also disrupt them. Informed by detailed fieldwork across Asia and the Pacific Islands, the contributions demonstrate that neither transitional justice or civil society should be treated as taken-for-granted concepts. Demonstrating that neither transitional justice or civil society should be treated as taken-for-granted concepts, Reconceiving Civil Society and Transitional Justice will be of great interest to scholars of Security Studies, Asian Studies, Peacebuilding, Asia Pacific, Human Rights, Reconciliation and the Politics of Memory. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of Global Change, Peace & Security.