Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Democracy is considered to be the best regime to stabilize a chaotic state. This study goes beyond a simple assessment of the presence of democracy to examine specific components of democracy for their specific contributions to state stability. Holding other components constant, I hypothesize that an increase in international pressure is related to an increase in reconciliation of ethnic conflicts in former authoritarian societies such as Croatia and Bosnia. This study first tests, through cross-tab analyses, whether a relationship exists between international demands for reconciliation and internal state stability. It also tests the nature of this relationship through regression analyses of 116 countries, using 23 separate democratic, economic, management and development variables. These tests are based on the Bertelsmann Transformation Index, 2003. For this study, international cooperation exists when there is, for example, sharing of technologies, institutional learning across borders and reciprocal economic agreements. Conversely, international pressure is defined by the use of sanctions, embargoes, negative publicity and other forms of economic and political exclusion. States are naturally vested in the security of other states. This study helps identify the roles that states should play in the internal conflicts of other sovereign states. It also helps identify the criteria that other states may use in deciding whether to assist states in their efforts to democratize.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The East Timorese are emerging from a turbulent history comprising 450 years of Portuguese rule followed by civil war, invasion and 25 years of Indonesian occupation characterised by human rights abuses, massacres and violence such as that which followed the independence referendum in 1999. The population is divided politically between those who supported autonomy within Indonesia and those who supported independence. In the aftermath of the militia violence of 1999, there is a division between those who led the militia, those who followed, their families, and those who were targets of the militia violence. Reconciliation is needed between these different sectors of the East Timorese population, as well as between East and West Timorese, East Timorese and Indonesians more generally, and between East Timorese and those members of the international community such as Australia which supported the Indonesian annexation of East Timor and failed to prevent the subsequent violence and human right abuses. This paper will focus specifically on assessing the contribution of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation towards achieving reconciliation and justice for the East Timorese. The Commission, which is due to release its final report in October 2004, had three main purposes: to investigate human rights violations during the period between 25 April 1974 until 25 October 1999 (truth seeking); to assist in the reception and reintegration of those who committed lesser crimes (community reconciliation); and to report its findings and make policy recommendations to the East Timorese government for further action on reconciliation and the promotion of human rights. Based on interviews conducted with East Timorese in July 2004, this paper will comment on the effectiveness of the Commission and how its operations and impact have been affected by the lack of amnesty and concurrent operation of criminal accountability mechanisms in both Indonesia and East Timor.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Although the use of truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) has grown considerably over the last three decades, there is still much that we do not know concerning the choice, the structuring and the effect of TRCs. While the literature has focused primarily on the effects of TRCs, we examine the domestic and the international factors influencing the choice of a commission in sub Saharan Africa from 1974 to 2003 using pooled cross-sectional time series. We find that states which adopted a TRC prior to South Africa were generally repressive, centralized regimes which used the truth commission as political cover. However, since South Africa’s TRC, transitional democracies, influenced by regional actors and the international community, have been more likely to adopt a truth commission. We conclude that the difference in state motivations before and after South Africa may assist in explaining the relative success and failure of commissions in Africa over the last thirty years.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Women’s experience of political violence continues to be largely neglected in transitional justice approaches. Far too often, truth commission mandates, judicial opinions and policy proposals for reparations have been pursued, interpreted and implemented with little regard for the distinct and complex injuries women have experienced. Furthermore, the absence of women from transitional justice mechanisms reinforces their marginalized position in negotiating with the state and legal norms on issues of accountability. Political transitions provide an extraordinary window of opportunity for enhancing women’s access to justice, reclaiming public space as well as building momentum for fundamental reform. Lessons from Bosnia, Rwanda and South Africa have demonstrated the critical importance of integrating not only a gender analysis in the understanding of crimes committed against women, but also responding to feminist criticism to the conceptual and tactical exclusion of women in the entire process of transitional justice. This essay argues that the process of systematic exclusion of women does not begin at the site of tribunals and truth commissions, but from the decision of whether to pursue peace or justice in the aftermath of war. In particular, the paper examines the gendered nature of political reconciliation and the politics of exclusion when states grant amnesty and impunity to war criminals. It critically studies the nature of the state and the understanding of citizenship in responding to accountability when women are largely absent from the discourse of how to proceed on matters of transitional justice. Drawing from the experiences of South Africa, Sierra Leone, Bosnia and Rwanda, this research takes a closer look into the politics of reconciliation and how it undermines the demands of women survivors’ and where the space has been created to recognize them. Given the climate of impunity and the policy of national reconciliation being pursued in Afghanistan, this study further attempts to understand the extent to which the rights and of women survivors are undermined in the process of seeking peace and where the space could be created for a more nuanced understanding of justice and accountability.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Are peace and justice after wars and violence possible, or must policymakers choose one and not the other? We often hear it said that there can be no peace without justice, yet we also often hear policymakers arguing that compromises in the interest of peace must sometimes be made at the expense of justice. For nations emerging from wars and other violent periods, determining whether to prosecute those responsible for atrocities, or to forgive and forget is perhaps the most critical first step in the post conflict phase. I seek to investigate to what extent nations that pursue justice, that is prosecution of national leaders who violated their peoples' human rights are capable to achieving peace. And, conversely, to what extent are those nations that do not seek such prosecutions able to achieve peace. The hypotheses are tested on a data set of nations emerging from periods of violence.