The Paradox of Transition in Conflicted Democracies

Abstract

Transitional Justice discourses have largely focused on "paradigmatic transitions." Such analyses emphasize dealing with the human rights abuses committed by prior authoritarian or illegitimate regimes. But, authoritarian entities may not be the only kind of states with a legacy of serious and systematic rights-violations. A similar legacy may manifest in broadly democratic states that have experienced prolonged political violence. These "conflicted democracies" present a number of paradoxes, which come to the fore when peace and transitional political process are agreed, thereby providing unique challenges in political and legal transformation. This article explores these paradoxes and challenges. It further draws out a more nuanced understand of the transitional process by conceptually separating war/peace transitions from illiberal polity/democracy transitions.

Human Rights Trials in an Era of Democratic Stagnation: The Case of Turkey

“…The Turkish military ( Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri , TSK) has played a central role in the establishment and development of the Republic since 1923 under Atatürk (Harris ; Hale ; Jenkins ). Turkey has not experienced a “paradigmatic transition” to democracy (Ní Aoláin and Campbell ) with an easily identified break with the authoritarian past, as is the case in many Latin American countries that often inform the extant debate (O'Donnel and Schmitter ; Lutz and Sikkink ; Snyder and Vinjamuri 2003; Sikkink ; Michel and Sikkink ). While Turkey became an electoral democracy between 1945 and 1950 (Zürcher , 218), the TSK has remained heavily involved in politics, staging interventions in 1960, 1971, 1980, and more recently the military publicly threatened interference in the 2007 presidential elections (Yilmaz 2009, 125).…”

Out of Eastern Europe

“…The paradox of multiple simultaneous transitions opened up much more analytical space for challenging the principal transitional justice concepts of truth-seeking, reconciliation, or justice. 11 The deep reluctance across much of eastern europe to systematically address the legacies of both communist and post-communist violence has also challenged other major assumptions from human rights scholarship, which predicted sustained social demand for justice after conflicts end. 12 The Yugoslav cases complicate transitional justice theories even more.…”

Citizenship and Social Exclusion: The Re-Integration of Political Ex-Prisoners in Northern Ireland

“…In particular, building the legitimacy of law and legal institutions within excluded communities becomes a key element of the transition and a key strategy to deflect attention from what might be seen as more core constitutional issues as to state legitimacy. Ní Aoláin and Campbell (2005) have argued that the conceptual baseline for assessing the journey of transition has typically been 'that of the nondemocratic state in the process of change to a stable democracy' (Ní Aoláin and Campbell 2005: 173). This 'paradigmatic transition' is identified as appropriate for authoritarian states, where the legitimacy of the 'old' regime and its legacy of rights violations become the starting point for change, and transition is seen as a finite process which is completed when the 'old' is replaced by the 'new'.…”

“…If the objective of citizenship, and its value as a means of integration, is inclusivity, the focus must now turn to whether or how the current model should be changed to accommodate political ex-prisoners. Ní Aoláin and Campbell (2005) argue that in transitional societies, there is a clear need for inclusivity: by on August 3, 2010 http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org…”