Discourse normative change and the quest for reconciliation in global politics

<p>This book offers a new and critical perspective on the global reconciliation technology by highlighting its contingent and highly political character as an authoritative practice of post-conflict peacebuilding. After retracing the emergence of the reconciliation discourse from South Africa to the global level the book demonstrates how implementing reconciliation in post-conflict societies is a highly political practice which entails potentially undesirable consequences for the post-conflict societies to which it is deployed. Specifically the book shows how the reconciliation discourse brings about the marginalisation and neutralisation of political claims and identities of local post-conflict populations by producing these societies as being composed of the 'victims' and 'perpetrators' of past human rights violations which are first and foremost in need of reconciliation and healing.<br><br>This book will interest students and teachers of transitional justice and international relations.</p>