Adopting a Resistance Lens

An Exploration of Power and Legitimacy in Transitional Justice

in Conflict and Society
Author:
Julie Bernath University of Basel julie.bernath@swisspeace.ch

Search for other papers by Julie Bernath in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Close
and
Sandra Rubli Independent researcher sandra.rubli@gmail.com

Search for other papers by Sandra Rubli in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Close
Restricted access

ABSTRACT

Drawing from the critical scholarship on transitional justice and from studies of resistance, this article brings together different observations of resistance, including different sets of actors, forms and motives of resistance, and analyzes their implications for power and legitimacy in contexts of transition. The article argues that the analytical value of resistance lies in the original vantage point it provides for an engagement with questions of power and legitimacy that inform transitional justice processes, but that are often difficult to identify on an empirical level. In doing so, it proposes a “resistance lens,” that is, an explicit focus on resistance that is based on a relational understanding to resistance, in order to move beyond simplistic conceptions of resistance in transitional justice scholarship that mainly approach resistance as resulting from a lack of political will of the powerful elite to implement supposedly universal transitional justice models.

Contributor Notes

JULIE BERNATH is a PhD fellow at swisspeace and the University of Basel, Switzerland. Her research focuses on resistance(s) to transitional justice in Cambodia and is part of the research project “Resisting Transitional Justice? Alternative Understandings of Peace and Justice,” funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (2012–2015). She has a master’s degree in political science from Sciences Po Paris, France. Prior to joining swisspeace in 2012, she worked in the Public Affairs Section of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.

SANDRA RUBLI is an independent researcher, and since 2014, she has worked in Burundi for the Civil Peace Service, a program of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), as a technical adviser on transitional justice. She graduated with a master’s degree in political science from the University of Bern in 2007 and with a PhD in political science from the University of Basel in 2016. Between 2006 and 2014 she worked for swisspeace as a researcher and program officer in the conflict early warning program FAST, the competency center for peacebuilding KOFF, and the Dealing with the Past Department. Her PhD research focuses on transitional justice and state-formation in Burundi.

  • Collapse
  • Expand

Conflict and Society

Advances in Research

  • Abu-Lughod, Lila. 1990. “The Romance of Resistance: Tracing Transformations of Power through Bedouin Women.” American Ethnologist 17, no. 1: 4155.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Ainley, Kirsten. 2013. “Transitional Justice in Cambodia: The Coincidence of Power and Principle.” Pp. 125156 in Transitional Justice in the Asia-Pacific, ed. R. Jeffery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Albrecht, Peter, and Louise W. Moe. 2015. “The Simultaneity of Authority in Hybrid Orders.” Peacebuilding 3, no. 1: 116.

  • An-Na’im, Abdullahi Ahmed. 2013. “Editorial Note: From the Neo-Colonial ‘Transitional’ to Indigenous Formations of Justice.” International Journal of Transitional Justice 7, no. 2: 197204.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Arthur, Paige. 2009. “How ‘Transitions’ Reshaped Human Rights: A Conceptual History of Transitional Justice.” Human Rights Quarterly 31: 321367.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Baines, Erin. 2010. “Spirits and Social Reconstruction after Mass Violence: Rethinking Transitional Justice.” African Affairs 109, no. 436: 409430.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Bell, Christine. 2009. “Transitional Justice, Interdisciplinarity and the State of the ‘Field’ or ‘Non-Field’.” International Journal of Transitional Justice 3, no. 1: 527.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Bellina, Séverine, Dominique Darbon, Stein Sundstøl Eriksen, and Ole Jacob Sending. 2009. “The Legitimacy of the State in Fragile Situations.” Report 20/2009 Discussion. Oslo: Norad.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Bevernage, Berber. 2010. “Writing the Past Out of the Present: History and the Politics of Time in Transitional Justice.” History Workshop Journal (69): 111131.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Boege, Volker. 2014. “Vying for Legitimacy in Post-Conflict Situations: The Bougainville Case.” Peacebuilding 2, no. 3: 237252.

  • Bonacker, Thorsten, Wolfgang Form, and Dominik Pfeiffer. 2011. “Transitional Justice and Victim Participation in Cambodia: A World Polity Perspective.” Global Society 25, no. 1: 113134.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Brown, Michael. 1996. “On Resisting Resistance.” American Anthropologist 98, no. 4: 729735.

  • Brudholm, Thomas. 2008. Resentment’s Virtue: Jean Améry and the Refusal to Forgive. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

  • Brudholm, Thomas, and Valérie Rosoux. 2009. “The Unforgiving: Reflections on the Resistance to Forgiveness after Atrocity.” Law and Contemporary Problems 72, no. 2: 3350.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Buchanan, Allan, and Robert O. Keohane. 2006. “The Legitimacy of Global Governance Institutions.” Ethics and International Affairs 20, no. 4: 405437.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Buckley-Zistel, Susanne. 2009. “Transitional Justice in Divided Societies: Potentials and Limits.” Paper presented at Fifth General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research Potsdam University, Germany. 10–12 September 2009.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Buckley-Zistel, Susanne. 2011. “Narration und Transition: Vom Umgang mit der Vergangenheit in Wahrheitskommissionen nach extremer Gewalt.” Pp. 289302 in Bürgerkriege erzählen, ed. S. Ferhadbegović and B. Weiffen. Konstanz: University of Konstanz Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Butler, Judith. 1997. The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

  • Chandler, David. 2008. “Cambodia Deals with Its Past: Collective Memory, Demonisation and Induced Amnesia.” Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 9, no. 23: 355369.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Ciorciari, John, and Anne Heindel. 2014. Hybrid Justice: The ECCC. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.

  • Clements, Kevin. 2014. “What Is Legitimacy and Why Does It Matter For Peace?” In “Legitimacy and Peace Processes. From Coercion to Consent,” ed. A. Ramsbotham, and A. Wennmann. Accord: An International Review of Peace Initiatives 25 (2014): 1316.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Cook, Deborah. 2003. “Legitimacy and Political Violence: A Habermasian Perspective.” Social Justice 30, no. 3/93 (2003): 108126.

  • Dube, Siphiwe Ignatius. 2011. “Transitional Justice Beyond the Normative: Towards a Literary Theory of Political Transitions.” International Journal of Transitional Justice 5: 177197.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Elster, Jon. 1998. “Coming to Terms with the Past: A Framework for the Study of Justice in the Transition to Democracy.” European Journal of Sociology 39, no. 1: 748.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). 2009a. Public Case FileDuch”, Case 001/Trial Chamber. Transcript of Proceedings. Trial Day 36. ECCC Document E1/41. 30 June 2009.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. 2009b. Public Case FileDuch”, Case 001/Trial Chamber. Transcript of Proceedings. Trial Day 59. ECCC Document E1/63.1. 17 August 2009.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Fletcher, Robert. 2001. “What Are We Fighting For? Rethinking Resistance in a Pewenche Community in Chile.” Journal of Peasant Studies 28, no. 3: 3766.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Foucault, Michel. 1980. Power/Knowledge. Selected Interviews and Other Writings. New York: Pantheon Books.

  • Foucault, Michel. 1982. “The Subject and Power.” Critical Inquiry 8, 777795.

  • Goldston, James. 2006. “An Extraordinary Experiment in Transitional Justice.” Pp. 16 in Justice Initiatives. Open Society Justice Initiative Publication. Available at: www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/jinitiatives_200604.pdf [last accessed 11.05.2016].

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Gibson, James L.. 2009. “On Legitimacy Theory and the Effectiveness of Truth Commissions”, Law and Contemporary Problems 72, no. 2: 123141.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Hamber, Brandon, and Richard Wilson. 2002. “Symbolic Closure through Memory, Reparation and Revenge in Post-Conflict Societies.” Journal of Human Rights 1, no. 1: 3553.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Hammarberg, Thomas. 2001. “How the Khmer Rouge Tribunal Was Agreed.” Searching for the Truth Magazine, Phnom Penh, Cambodia: DC-Cam. Available at www.d.dccam.org/Tribunal/Analysis/How_Khmer_Rouge_Tribunal.htm [last accessed 11.05.2016].

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Hazan, Pierre. 2007. Juger la guerre, juger l’histoire: Du bon usage des commissions vérité et de la justice internationale. [Judging War, Judging History. On the Good Use of Truth Commissions and International Justice]. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Hazan, Pierre. 2008. «Les dilemmes de la justice transitionnelleMouvements 1, no. 53: 4147.

  • Hollander, Jocelyn A., and Rachel L. Einwohner. 2004. “Conceptualizing Resistance.” Sociological Forum 19, no. 4: 533554.

  • Huntington, Samuel. 1991. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

  • Hurd, Ian. 1999. “Legitimacy and Authority in International Politics.” International Organization 53, no. 2: 379408.

  • Jacobs, Jane M. 1997. “Resisting Reconciliation: The Secret Geographies of (Post) Colonial Australia.” Pp. 203218 in Geographies of Resistance, ed. S. Pile and M. Keith. London: Routledge.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Jones, Briony. 2013. “Understanding Resistance and its Implications for Hybridity.” Paper presented at the Seventh General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research Sciences Po Bordeaux, France. 4–7 September 2013.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Jones, Briony, Julie Bernath, and Sandra Rubli. 2013. “Reflections on a Research Agenda for Exploring Resistance to Transitional Justice.” swisspeace Working Paper 3.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Kagoro, Brian. 2012. “The Paradox of Alien Knowledge, Narrative and Praxis: Transitional Justice and the Politics of Agenda Setting in Africa.” Pp. 452 in Where Law Meets Reality: Forging African Transitional Justice, ed. M. C. Okello, C. Dolan, U. Whande, N. Mncwabe, L. Onegi and S. Oola. Cape Town: Pambazuka Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Kaminski, Marek M., Monika Nalepa, and Barry O’Neill. 2006. “Normative and Strategic Aspects of Transitional Justice.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 50, no. 3: 295302.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Knight, Alan. 2012. “Rethinking Histories of Resistance in Brazil and Mexico.” Pp. 325354 in New Approaches to Resistance in Brazil and Mexico, ed. J. Gledhill and P. A. Schell. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Lambourne, Wendy. 2009. “Transitional Justice and Peacebuilding after Mass Violence.” International Journal of Transitional Justice 3, no. 1 (2009): 2848.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Leebaw, Bronwyn Anne. 2008. “The Irreconcilable Goals of Transitional Justice.” Human Rights Quarterly 30, no. 1: 95118.

  • Lefranc, Sandrine. 2009. «La professionnalisation d’un militantisme réformateur du droit: l’invention de la justice transitionnelleDroit et Société 3, no. 73: 561589.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Lefranc, Sandrine. 2002. Politiques du pardon. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

  • Lilja, Mona. 2013. Resisting Gendered Norms: Civil Society, the Juridical and Political Space in Cambodia, ender in a Global/Local World. Farnham: Ashgate.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • MacGinty, Roger. 2012. “Between Resistance and Compliance: Non-Participation and the Liberal Peace.” Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 6, no. 2: 167187.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Madlingozi, Tshepo. 2010. “On Transitional Justice Entrepreneurs and the Production of Victims.” Journal of Human Rights Practice 2, no. 2: 208228.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Makoto, Charles. 2014. «CVR: sa mise en place: Un grand pas dans la recherche de la véritéPublications de Presse Burundaise. 11 December. http://www.ppbdi.com/index.php/extras/jtuts/705-cvr-sa-mise-en-place (accessed 7 May 2015).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Mamdani, Mahmood. 1996. “Reconciliation without Justice.” South African Review of Books 46 (NovemberDecember): 35.

  • March, James G., and Johan P. Olsen. 1998. “The Institutional Dynamics of International Political Orders.” International Organization 52, no. 4: 943969.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • McEvoy, Kieran, and Laura McGregor. 2008. Transitional Justice from Below: Grassroots Activism and the Struggle for Change. Oxford: Hart.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • McGrattan, Cillian. 2009. “‘Order Out of Chaos’: The Politics of Transitional Justice.” Politics 29, no. 3: 164172.

  • McGrew, Laura. 2009. “Re-Establishing Legitimacy through the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.” Pp. 250296 in Beyond Democracy in Cambodia: Political Reconstruction in a Post-Conflict Society, ed. J. Öjendal and M. Lilja. Copenhagen: NIAS Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Moon, Claire. 2006. “Narrating Political Reconciliation: Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa.” Social and Legal Studies 15, no. 2: 257275.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Moore, Donald S. 1998. “Subaltern Struggles and the Politics of Place: Remapping Resistance in Zimbabwe’s Eastern Highlands.” Cultural Anthropology 13, no. 3: 344381.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Nagy, Rosemary. 2008. “Transitional Justice as Global Project: Critical Reflections.” Third World Quarterly 29, no. 2: 275289.

  • Ngendakumana, Philippe. 2014. «Une CVR faite de politiques et de religieuxIWACU. 9 December.

  • Ngendakumana, Philippe, and Christian Bigirimana. 2014. «Une CVR qui ne rassure pasIWACU, 16 December.

  • Newman, Edmond, and Oliver Richmond. 2006. The Impact of Spoilers on Peace Processes and Peacebuilding. Policy Brief No. 2. UNU-Centre.

  • Obradović-Wochnik, Jelena. 2013. “The ‘silent Dilemma’ of Transitional Justice: Silencing and Coming to Terms with the Past in Serbia.” International Journal of Transitional Justice 7: 328347.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Ortner, Sherry B. 1996. “Resistance and the Problem of Ethnographic Refusal.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 37, no. 1: 173193.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Palmer, Nicola. 2014. “Re-Examining Resistance in Post-Genocide Rwanda.” Journal of Eastern African Studies 8, no. 2: 231245.

  • Palmer, Nicola, Phil Clark, and Danielle Granville, eds. 2012. Critical Perspectives in Transitional Justice. Antwerp: Intersentia.

  • Paris, Roland. 2002. “International Peacebuilding and the ‘Mission Civilisatrice.’Review of International Studies 28 (2002): 637656.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Pile, Steve. 1997. “Introduction.” Pp. 132 in Geographies of Resistance, ed. S. Pile and M. Keith. London: Routledge.

  • Pile, Steve, and Michael Keith. eds. 1997. Geographies of Resistance. London: Routledge.

  • Pouligny, Béatrice. 2005. “The Forgotten Dimensions of ‘Transitional Justice’ Mechanisms: Cultural Meanings and Imperatives for Survivors of Violent Conflicts.” Paper presented at the International Conference on Global Justice, Local Legitimacy, 27–29 January 2005, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Rajagopal, Balakrishnan. 2003. International Law from Below: Development, Social Movements and Third World Resistance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Robins, Simon. 2012. “Transitional Justice as an Elite Discourse. Human Rights Practice: Where the Global meets the Local in Post-Conflict Nepal.” Critical Asian Studies 44, no. 1: 330.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Rubli, Sandra, 2013. “(Re)making the Social World: The Politics of Transitional Justice in Burundi.” Africa Spectrum, 48, no. 1: 324.

  • Rubli, Sandra. 2014. “Transitional Justice as an Instrument for Political Struggles: Dealing with the Past and State Formation in Burundi.” PhD diss., University of Basel, Switzerland.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Scott, James C. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

  • Seymour, Susan. 2006. “Resistance.” Anthropological Theory 6, no. 3: 303321.

  • Sharp, Joanne P., Paul Routledge, Chris Philo, and Ronan Paddison, eds. 2000. Entanglements of Power: Geographies of Domination / Resistance, Critical Geographies. London: Routledge.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Shaw, Rosalind, Lars Waldorf, and Pierre Hazan, eds. 2010. Localizing Transitional Justice: Interventions and Priorities after Mass Violence. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Sieff, Michelle, and Leslie Vinjamuri. 1999. “Reconciling Order and Justice? New Institutional Solutions in Post-Conflict States.” Journal of International Affairs 52, no. 2: 757779.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Smart, Barry. 2002. Michel Foucault. London: Routledge.

  • Snyder, Jack, and Leslie Vinjamuri. 2004. “Trials and Errors: Principle and Pragmatism in Strategies of International Justice.” International Security 26, no. 3: 544.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Sriram, Chandra. 2007. “Justice as Peace? Liberal Peacebuilding and Strategies of Transitional Justice.” Global Society 21, no. 4: 579591.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Sriram, Chandra. 2012. “Post-Conflict Justice and Hybridity in Peacebuilding: Resistance or Cooptation?” Pp. 5872 in Hybrid Forms of Peace: From Everyday Agency to Post-Liberalism, ed. O. Richmond and A. Mitchell. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Stedman, Stephen J. 1997. “Spoiler Problems in Peace Processes.” International Security 22, no. 2: 553.

  • Subotić, Jelena. 2009. Hijacked Justice: Dealing with the Past in the Balkans. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

  • Taylor, David. 2013. “‘We Have No Influence’: International Discourse and the Instrumentalisation of Transitional Justice in Burundi.” Stability: International Journal of Security and Development 2, no. 3: 110.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Teitel, Ruti. 2003. “Transitional Justice Genealogy.” Harvard Human Rights Journal 16: 6994.

  • Theidon, Kimberly. 2010. “Histories of Innocence: Postwar Stories in Peru.” Pp. 92110. In Localizing Transitional Justice: Interventions and Priorities after Mass Violence, ed. R. Shaw, L. Waldorf, and P. Hazan. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Thomson, Susan. 2011. “Whispering Truth to Power: The Everyday Resistance of Rwandan Peasants to Post-Genocide Reconciliation.” African Affairs 110, no. 440: 429456.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Thomson, Susan, and Rosemary Nagy. 2011. “Law, Power and Justice: What Legalism Fails to Address in the Functioning of Rwanda’s Gacaca Courts.” International Journal of Transitional Justice 5: 1130.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Vinck, Patrick, and Phuong Pham. 2008. “Ownership and Participation in Transitional Justice Mechanisms: A Sustainable Human Development Perspective from Eastern DRC.” International Journal of Transitional Justice 2: 398411.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Weber, Max. 1947. Theory of Social and Economic Organization. New York: Free Press.

  • Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Metrics

All Time Past Year Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 4671 2703 198
Full Text Views 42 8 0
PDF Downloads 33 12 0