Author's Keywords: human rights, transitional justice, Central Asia, post-communist, post-communism, Balkans, Central Europe, democratization	Convention All Academic Convention is the premier solution for your association's abstract management solutions needs. Submission - Custom fields, multiple submission types, tracks, audio visual, multiple upload formats, automatic conversion to pdf. Review - Peer Review, Bulk reviewer assignment, bulk emails, ranking, z-score statistics, and multiple worksheets! Reports - Many standard and custom reports generated while you wait. Print programs with participant indexes, event grids, and more! Scheduling - Flexible and convenient grid scheduling within rooms and buildings. Conflict checking and advanced filtering. Communication - Bulk email tools to help your administrators send reminders and responses. Use form letters, a message center, and much more! Management - Search tools, duplicate people management, editing tools, submission transfers, many tools to manage a variety of conference management headaches! Click here for more information.
Association: Name: American Political Science Association URL: http://www.apsanet.org
Citation: URL: http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p152769_index.html Direct Link: HTML Code:

Grodsky, Brian. "Exploring Determinants of Transitional Justice: The Role of Institutions in Human Rights Accountability" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Marriott, Loews Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia, PA, Aug 31, 2006 <Not Available>. 2009-05-24 <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p152769_index.html>

Grodsky, B. K. , 2006-08-31 "Exploring Determinants of Transitional Justice: The Role of Institutions in Human Rights Accountability" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Marriott, Loews Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia, PA Online <PDF>. 2009-05-24 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p152769_index.html

Publication Type: Proceeding Abstract: Scholars of democratization and transitional justice (those legal responses to a former regime's repressive acts following a change in political systems) frequently argue that the relative power of new elites is the primary determinant of transitional justice policies. Simplified, they argue that the stronger a new elite is, the harsher forms of transitional justice (e.g, criminal accountability) we should expect to see. I argue here that institutions, rather than actors, play the key role in shaping the path of transitional justice. Members of the new elite housed in primary institutions (those with high levels of constitutional authority, such as the prime minister in a parliamentary system) operate with the expectation that voters will ultimately judge them based on their ability to provide public goods. As a result, new elites will only pursue harsh forms of justice insofar as they are not perceived to interfere with the provision of public goods. When there is strong public opposition to harsh forms of justice, the provision of otherwise unavailable public goods may be used to ‘buy off’ societal antipathy towards particular transitional justice processes. I test the relative power argument and my institutional argument through case studies conducted in four diverse post-communist states – Uzbekistan, Serbia, Croatia and Poland. These cases share similar communist-era human rights violations, broad elements of political culture (elitism, low levels of civil society) and, importantly, contexts in which transitional justice processes are discussed (in the context of both political and economic reform). At the same time, the cases are diverse enough to allow for a broad test of these arguments. They vary based on transition type, post-communist human rights record and the extent of internal and external pressures for and against justice. I find that the relative power argument generally fails to explain justice policies in all four of these cases, whereas the institutional argument is weak only in the case of a non-democratic state (Uzbekistan). While relative power proponents argue that transitional justice is determined by the strength of the players in a new system, evidence from this study suggests that both the players and the formal rules of the game are critical.

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