Justice and/or Peace: Post-Conflict Justice and Conflict Reoccurrence
Year: 2011
Type: preprint
Abstract: Does the implementation of post-conflict justice reduce the likelihood of conflict reoccurrence? While the existing literature disagrees on the relationship between justice implementation and intrastate conflict reoccurrence, scholars working in this field have failed to adequately assess the relationship between justice and peace in a systematic way. In this paper we overcome the theoretical and empirical limitations by addressing the relationship between the implementation of justice institutions and the likelihood that conflict will reoccur. In so doing, we argue that only certain types of justice processes increase the durability of peace in post-conflict states. Specifically, we distinguish between grievance processes (i.e. truth commissions, reparations programs and amnesties) and opportunity processes (i.e. trials, purges and exiles). In a series of statistical tests accounting for the non-random nature of these institutions using data on post-conflict justice institutions implemented following intrastate conflicts from 1946-2006, we find strong statistical and substantive support for our theoretical expectation that grievance addressing processes can reduce the likelihood of conflict reoccurrence, however we find no evidence that opportunity processes have the same effect.
Source: SSRN Electronic Journal
Authors: Cyanne E. Loyle, Benjamin J. Appel
Institutions: West Virginia University, Michigan State University
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1603666866