Sociology of Transitional Justice

Social Recovery through Unintended Collective Action

Abstract

Since the 1990s, a series of institutional policies named transitional justice（TJ）have been globally pervasive in the context of conflict resolution and post-conflict social reconstruction. TJ encompasses several options, most notably international “hybrid” tribunals, which embody the principle of local ownership, and truth commissions that are involved primarily in truth-seeking and statement-taking concerning various issues related to past conflicts. The former has been adopted in Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Lebanon, and Liberia, and the latter has been used in countries such as South Africa, East Timor, Peru, and Argentina.

This article examines the social influence of TJ in general by focusing on an “official scenario” that channels the institutional design of TJ activities and illustrating desirable steps for bringing expected collective actions in this scenario, such as making public announcements to enlighten local residents mobilizing them to participate in symbolic events, sharing sympathetic spectacles among locals at authorized venues, and achieving national reconciliation and forging a new collective identity. The sociological and anthropological studies on TJs conducted in Africa, Asia, and Latin America have greatly considered local populationʼs reactions to such scenarios. By critically reviewing the resulting literature, this article offers insights into TJʼs latent function of catalyzing the possible recovery of local societies—not directly, through official implementation, but rather through local populationʼs divergence from the official program or supplementation of the TJ process through spontaneous action even when TJ fails to achieve official objectives.