Coding, Databases and Datasets in Transitional Justice Research

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Transitional justice (TJ) describes a set of (quasi-)legal measures usually applied in the aftermath of large-scale political violence. Truth commissions, reparations, trials, guarantees of non-repetition and memorialisation are now recognised as the main pillars of TJ. Since it was developed as a practice employed during transitions from either authoritarian regimes or armed conflict, research on TJ has emphasized single-case or small-n studies. Recent scholarship has made a significant leap from primarily qualitative research of this nature to constructing new datasets or priming existing databases for large-n mixed-methods or quantitative analysis. This panel brings together papers that participate in this new vein of research in different ways. First, we investigate how a qualitative dataset may be re-evaluated and transformed for quantitative analysis to gauge the potential of monitoring, evaluating and advocacy bodies for the implementation of truth commission recommendations as tools of long-term truth commission impact. Second, we look at when governments promise and deliver reparations in the aftermath of large-scale and massive human rights violations targeted at different population groups between 1945 and 2006 in Latin America, Europe, and Central Asia. Third, we explore the difference between committing to transitional justice and actually implementing it by presenting new data on the implementation of justice provisions in peace agreements between 2002 and 2019. Fourth, we explore the insights that large foreign aid datasets reveal about donor support for TJ processes around the world.

Sub Unit

• Division 45: Human Rights

Individual Presentations

• Extending Truth: Monitoring, Evaluating & Advocating Commission Recommendations - Adriana Rudling, Global Research Institute; Elijah Tsai, International Justice Lab; Kelebogile Zvobgo, College of William & Mary; Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm, University of Arkansas, Little Rock

• Promises and Payments: Introducing a New Reparations Dataset - Claire Greenstein, University of Alabama, Birmingham

• Commitment & Follow Through: Implementing Justice Provisions in Peace Agreements - Genevieve Bates, University of Wisconsin, Madison

• Funding TJ: How Donor Preferences for Shape Project Impact - Shivangi Seth, Australian National University; Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm, University of Arkansas, Little Rock; Kirsten Ainley

Chair

• Adriana Rudling Global Research Institute

Discussants

• Francesca Parente Christopher Newport University

• Eleonora La Spada University of Strathclyde