Unchopping a tree: reconciliation in the aftermath of political violence

241 Pages·2009·1.09 MB·English

by  Ernesto Verdeja

Unchopping a Tree
In The Series Politics, History, and Social Change,
edited by John C. Torpey
Also in this series:
Rebecca Jean Emigh, The Undevelopment of Capitalism: Sectors and
Markets in Fifteenth- Century Tuscany
Aristide R. Zolberg, How Many Exceptionalisms? Explorations in
Comparative Macroanalysis
Thomas Brudholm, Resentment’s Virtue: Jean Améry and the Refusal
to Forgive
Patricia Hill Collins, From Black Power to Hip Hop: Racism,
Nationalism, and Feminism
Daniel Levy and Natan Sznaider, translated by Assenka Oksiloff,
The Holocaust and Memory in the Global Age
Brian A. Weiner, Sins of the Parents: The Politics of National
Apologies in the United States
Heribert Adam and Kogila Moodley, Seeking Mandela: Peacemaking
Between Israelis and Palestinians
Marc Garcelon, Revolutionary Passage: From Soviet to Post- Soviet
Rus sia, 1985– 2000
Götz Aly and Karl Heinz Roth, translated by Assenka Oksiloff,
The Nazi Census: Identifi cation and Control in the Third Reich
Immanuel Wallerstein, The Uncertainties of Knowledge
Michael R. Marrus, The Unwanted: Eu ro pe an Refugees from the
First World War Through the Cold War
❖
Unchopping
a Tree
Reconciliation in the Aftermath
of Political Violence
Ernesto Verdeja
Temple University Press
Philadelphia
Temple University Press
1601 North Broad Street
Philadelphia PA 19122
www .temple .edu/t empress
Copyright © 2009 Temple University
All rights reserved
Published 2009
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the
American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48- 1992
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Verdeja, Ernesto.
Unchopping a tree : reconciliation in the aftermath of
po liti cal violence / Ernesto Verdeja.
p. cm. — (Politics, history, and social change)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978- 1- 4399- 0054- 3 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Po liti cal violence. 2. Social confl ict. 3. Confl ict management.
4. Reconciliation. I. Title.
JC328.6.V47 2009
303.6'9—dc22
2009013156
2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1
❖
Contents
Ack now ledg ments vii
1 Theorizing Reconciliation 1
2 Key Normative Concepts 28
3 Po liti cal Society 66
4 Institutional and Legal Responses: Trials and 92
Truth Commissions
5 Civil Society and Reconciliation 136
6 Interpersonal Reconciliation 160
7 Conclusion 180
Notes 187
References 197
Index 221

❖
Acknowledgments
T
his is a work about pol itic al reconciliation, about the need and
challenges of reconciling after severe pol itic al violence. I be-
came interested in this subject while living in South America as
a child and seeing fi rsthand the diffi culties of engaging with a fraught
past. Many years of thinking about these issues led me to graduate
school, culminating in a doctoral dissertation on which this book is
loosely based. I would like to thank Nancy Fraser and Courtney Jung,
who provided valuable suggestions and direction on the dissertation,
and Richard A. Wilson and Andrew Arato, who reminded me of the
importance of retaining the connection between normative theory and
practical politics in my work. Matthew Goldfeder read the text with
care and pressed me on a number of points, making the argument more
coherent than it otherwise would have been. His patience with my
questions was matched only by the wit and clarity of his suggestions.
While at Wesleyan, J. Donald Moon and Nancy Schwartz kindly
read the entire manuscript and gave detailed and important feedback
on the fundamental arguments. Their intellectual support and friend-
ship helped me enormously in this project. At the University of Notre
Dame, the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and the Cen-
ter for the Study of Social Movements and Social Change provided
fi nancial support and a wonderful environment in which to write.
viii ▪ Acknowledgments
I would especially like to thank Daniel Myers for securing this support
and making Notre Dame such a welcoming place. A number of per-
sons in Chile and Bosnia and Herzegovina kindly shared their experi-
ences with me, and I am enormously grateful to them. Many thanks
also go to Temple University Press and Micah Kleit for taking on this
project.
I dedicate this book to my parents, Martha and Ernesto, who have
always encouraged me in everything I have done and showed me the
beauty of learning, and to my Bettina, whose love and warmth made
this long journey possible and worthwhile. Without her support, this
would have been a diffi cult, lonely road.
Unchopping a Tree