Truth commissions : memory, power, and legitimacy / Onur Bakiner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bakiner, Onur, author.

Series:

Pennsylvania studies in human rights.

Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Truth commissions--Political aspects--Case studies.

Truth commissions.

Political crimes and offenses--Investigation--Case studies.

Political crimes and offenses.

Reconciliation--Political aspects--Case studies.

Reconciliation.

Memory--Political aspects--Case studies.

Memory.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (324 p.)

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania : University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Since the 1980s a number of countries have established truth commissions to come to terms with the legacy of past human rights violations, yet little is known about the achievements and shortcomings of this popular transitional justice tool. Drawing on research on Chile's National Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and exploring the scholarship on thirteen other transitional contexts, Onur Bakiner evaluates the success of truth commissions in promoting policy reform, human rights accountability, and the public recognition of human rights violations. He argues that although political elites often see a truth commission as a convenient way to address past atrocities, the findings, historical narratives, and recommendations of such commissions often surprise, upset, and discredit influential political actors. Even when commissions produce only modest change as a result of political constraints, Bakiner contends, they open up new avenues for human rights activism by triggering the creation of new victims' organizations, facilitating public debates over social memory, and inducing civil society actors to monitor the country's human rights policy.Bakiner demonstrates how truth commissions have recovered basic facts about human rights violations, forced societies to rethink the violence and exclusion of nation building, and produced a new dynamic whereby the state seeks to legitimize its central position between history and politics by accepting a high degree of societal penetration into the production and diffusion of official national history. By doing so, truth commissions have challenged and transformed public discourses on memory, truth, justice, reconciliation, recognition, nationalism, and political legitimacy in the contemporary world.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Introduction

Part I. Truth, Power, and Legitimation in Truth Commission Processes

Introduction to Part I

Chapter 1. Definition and Conceptual History of Truth Commissions: What Are They? What Have They Become?

Chapter 2. Speaking Truth to Power? The Politics of Truth Commissions

Chapter 3. One Truth Among Others? Truth Commissions' Struggle for Truth and Memory

Part II. Zooming In: Political and Social Change Through Truth Commissions

Introduction to Part II

Chapter 4. Truth Commission Impact: An Assessment of How Commissions Influence Politics and Society

Chapter 5. Explaining Variation in Truth Commission Impact (I): Chile and Peru

Chapter 6. Explaining Variation in Truth Commission Impact (II): Evidence from Thirteen Countries

Chapter 7. Comparing Truth Commissions' Memory Narratives: Chile and Peru

Part III. Zooming Out: Coming to Terms with the Past Through Truth Commissions

Introduction to Part III

Chapter 8. Nation and (Its New) Narration: A Critical Reading of Truth Commissions

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780812291926

0812291921

OCLC:

933515808