Transitional Justice and Polarisation in Parliamentary Interactions

• In Event: Conflict, Coercion, and Radicalization through the Lens of Text as Data

Abstract

Scholars have analysed how different actors in post-conflict societies support or resist reckoning with war crimes. Approaching opposed discourses as static construct, they have revealed transitional justice as a contested field of practice. But, they have overlooked how these actors engage with each other. Addressing this gap, we approach discourse as a dynamic construct and foreground an interactional dimension of political communication to evaluate its effect on transitional justice deliberation. We use an original dataset of speeches in the Serbian Parliament from 2003-2009. Applying computational quantitative text analysis, including topic models and sentiment measures, we study patterns of MPs’ discourse about transitional justice and their drivers. We identify how partisan and co-partisan interactions between MPs contribute to normative amplification of messages and political polarisation centred on transitional justice. The paper demonstrates how a computational analysis of discourse patterns advances the evidence base for normative claims about transitional justice, while shifting attention to little understood role of parliamentary debates in shaping views on transitional justice.

Authors

• Denisa Kostovicova, London School of Economics

• Ivor Sokolic, London School of Economics and Political Science

• Lanabi la Lova, LSE