“Righting the wrong”:A multicountry study on people’s perceptions of “making things right” in the wake of human rights violations.

More and more academics and policy makers advocate that countries ought to deal with past human rights violations. In this article, we explore whether people across the world agree with this normative expectation, and if so, what they think should be done to “make things right” and why. Our overarching objective was to see whether we can observe any universal patterns or common themes in this regard or whether people’s ideas and intuitions are primarily subject to cross-country variation. Through 283 interviews conducted in Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, the Netherlands, Poland, and the United States, we found that people largely share the belief that countries should deal with past transgressions, and that they see this as a multidimensional process that includes multiple measures that help ensure security and stability, restore harmony and peace, as well as meet other collective economic, social, and moral needs. Our findings also suggest, however, that people’s ideas about the specific measures that should be part of this process are at least partially shaped by the local social, economic, cultural, and political context as well. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved

Sovereign Debt Governance, Legitimacy, and the Sustainable Development Goals: Examining the Principles on Responsible Sovereign Lending and Borrowing

In the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (“SDGs”) negotiation, this article questions to what extent legitimacy matters in sovereign debt governance and, if so, under what conditions. How can one recognize legitimate governance instruments when informality of governance process and practice is regarded as an important goal? This article sees the implementation of SDGs in the global financial arena as facilitated by legitimate normative instruments that reflect general public interest and demonstrate respect for human rights. The implementation of informal norms should give rise to substantive outcomes that are both sustainable and legitimate, thereby complementing the procedural dimension of any normative instrument. This article evaluates this assumption by reviewing the development and implementation of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s Principles on Responsible Sovereign Lending and Borrowing. We conclude that legitimacy is not only a key component in the construction of well-grounded informal laws, but also forms part of a desirable legal framework for the implementation of SDGs

Reconciling historically excluded and disadvantaged groups: Deliberative democracy, recognition and the politics of reconciliation.

This thesis provides a critical examination of four approaches to democratic inclusion. These approaches are: egalitarian theories of deliberative democracy, identity politics and its post-structuralist critics, and integrative approaches. The thesis presents each approach as a successively more effective way of addressing democratic exclusion. Each theory is measured against the demands of accommodating the claims of groups that have suffered some form of historical exclusion and injustice. The thesis explains the significance of the demands of historical injustices in relation to these approaches and concludes that deliberative democracy and the politics of recognition require supplementation by a politics of reconciliation. Drawing on the idea of reconciliation from conflict resolution and international relations, the thesis explores the way in which democratic inclusion can be supplemented. The politics of reconciliation is fundamentally crucial for the task of accommodating demands of historically excluded social groups primarily because of its emphasis on confronting the past, acknowledging injustices, taking responsibility and offering an apology for causing these injustices and embracing the concrete and specific experiences of historical oppression and exclusion. Briefly, the distinctiveness of reconciliation stems from its serious engagement with the specificities and particularities of real and concrete experiences of historical oppression and exclusion. The originality of this thesis lies in providing a supplement to and therefore transforming the politics of recognition and deliberative democracy and their ability to address political problems of excluded social groups. This thesis does not aim to replace deliberation and recognition with new substitutes but seeks to offer a new interpretation of these theories and supplement them with reconciliation. Briefly, the thesis offers a new interpretation to familiar issues in different disciplines and the novel task has been to bring them together. The application of the ethic of reconciliation, from International Relations and conflict resolution, to the politics of recognition and deliberation makes a significant contribution to the field and the opening of a new research agenda for normative theories of democratic inclusion

The challenges and limitations of developing a "reconciliatory pedagogy" using oral history with South African pre-service and in-service history teachers.

This thesis concerns the challenges and limitations of developing a conception of a “reconciliatory pedagogy”. As a history methodology lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand, I noticed that relationships among students were polarised. But during the course of an oral history and cooperative learning assignment with second year students, I observed a shift in relationships among some of the students. This started my journey towards conceptualising a “reconciliatory pedagogy”, which addresses the difficult issue of how we reweave relationships in the South African history lecture/classroom, given our torrid past. The methodology used in this thesis is narrative inquiry. I have used this approach to consider the meaning of reconciliation from different perspectives and contexts: the literature on reconciliation, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in South Africa, and in practice with some history methodology students and history primary school teachers. John Paul Lederach’s (1997, 1999) images of reconciliation were key ideas literature that informed my conception of a reconciliatory pedagogy. He developed his dynamic ideas on reconciliation during his international attempts at peace-making, and I explored whether these ideas could be applied to the South African context of the history lecture/classroom. The TRC started the process of reconciliation in 1996, but everyday events continue to demonstrate the on-going lack of reconciliation in South Africa. A “reconciliatory pedagogy” aimed to take forward some aspects of the TRC, such as students/learners finding out more about the recent South African past via oral history interviews, and encouraging dialogue about this difficult past between the different generations. The use of cooperative learning strategies facilitated further dialogue about this past among the students/learners, where they shared “their” oral histories during a joint task, and in some cases engaged in Lederach’s (1999) “dance” of reconciliation. By interviewing history students/teachers, and through classroom observations, the successes and limitations of my conception of a “reconciliatory pedagogy” emerged. The results of the above process encouraged reflection about the education of history student teachers: it suggested the need for a more theory-based approach to their education via a critique of Lederach’s model of reconciliation and oral history in a “reconciliatory pedagogy”. A “reconciliatory pedagogy” does not claim to lead to big changes in attitudes or towards the teaching of history, but it assists in small shifts that may affect the broader project of reconciliation in South Africa

Transitional Justice, Peace and Everyday Reality: Somalilands Experience with Justice and Security-Sector Reform

This paper looks at Somalilands transitional justice process and the role that legal pluralism has played in shaping its attempts at justice and security-sector reform. By utilizing concepts like hybridity and the everyday, this paper frames these processes with an understanding that while legal pluralism has established Somalilands peace and security infrastructure, it has created opportunities and challenges for marginalized and vulnerable groups. Such challenges include accessing and participating in legal reform initiatives that support social transformation. This paper concludes with the need to frame transitional justice, from the onset, in a way that recognizes the importance of communities as the site of transformational justice

Rethinking critical theory between Rancière and the Frankfurt School

This thesis argues that Rancière’s conception of ‘aesthetic emancipation’ is a productive and neglected way of thinking about three political practices: a politics of memory, struggles for recognition and emancipatory education. I argue it can offer either a supplement or an alternative to recent Frankfurt School theorisations of these practices, particularly in relation to struggles concerned broadly with decolonisation. Specifically, in the first chapter, I argue that deliberative theorists miss an important form of political discourse, namely the speech of what Rancière calls the ‘part without a part.’ I examine the implications of this omission for a politics of memory and suggest that drawing attention to these marginalised, disruptive acts can have implications both for witnessing and taking up aesthetic acts of politics in the present. In the second chapter, I argue that Rancière’s concept of disagreement allows us to theorise struggles for ‘recognition’ in a way which avoids the problematic reconciliatory tendencies which haunt the work of Axel Honneth. However, in order to capture the struggle of an indigenous ‘politics of refusal,’ I argue against the claim that political subjects act in the ‘name of anyone’. In the third chapter, I give a partial defence of Rancière’s critique of stultification in relation to emancipatory educational practices and, by developing a more nuanced account of explanation, show how certain explanations might inhibit the will of political actors to act upon their equality. In all three cases, then, I suggest Rancière could add to our understanding of these practices but only by making modifications to his account, specifically to the concepts of dis-identification and explanation. Ultimately, by thinking between Rancière and the Frankfurt School, I argue we can think both affirmative, disruptive critical theory as well as a modest ‘negative’ critical theory of unequal social structures

Unchopping a Tree

Political violence does not end with the last death. A common feature of mass murder has been the attempt to destroy any memory of victims, with the aim of erasing them from history. Perpetrators seek not only to eliminate a perceived threat but also to eradicate any possibility of alternate, competing social and national histories. In this timely and important book, Ernesto Verdeja develops a critical justification for political reconciliation. He asks the questions “What is the balance between punishment and forgiveness?” and “What are the stakes in reconciling?” Developing a normative theory of reconciliation that differs from prevailing approaches, Verdeja outlines a concept that emphasizes the importance of shared notions of moral respect and tolerance among adversaries in transitional societies. Drawing from reconciliation efforts around the world—and interviews with people involved in such endeavors—Verdeja debates how best to envision reconciliation while taking into account the very significant practical obstacles that confront such efforts. Unchopping a Tree addresses the core concept of respect at four different social levels—political, institutional, civil society, and interpersonal—to explain the promise and challenges of securing reconciliation and broader social regeneration

Responsibility and Ambivalence

I use the concept of ambivalence—the state of being faced with a choice that cannot be resolved without sacrificing something of value—to approach five contemporary debates in the philosophy of moral responsibility: (1) psychopathy, (2) free will, (3) the emotion of guilt, (4) regret and indirect moral luck, and (5) moral demandingness. Rather than arguing for one theory or another, acknowledging ambivalence paves the way for resolving these debates by reconciling the opposing sides