| The basic questions that this dissertation asks are "what makes accountability for past abuses more or less possible in transitional regimes that still face serious resistance from elements of the old regime?" and "are there instances where goods other than justice might be appropriately pursued?" In this dissertation, I seek to contribute to three areas of the literature on transitional justice that are insufficiently developed. First, I seek to contribute to the normative literature by exploring the theoretical foundations of potential arguments for various outcomes, arguing first that there is a continuum of normative acceptability of various outcomes, and that which outcome is preferable is dependent upon prior decisions about what is morally most important for a particular society. Second, I turn to the practical continuum of outcomes: the options are not simply prosecution or pardon, as the most heated polemics of the debate over transitional justice might have us believe, but a range of options from complete amnesty through truth commissions and lustration. or purification to prosecutions. The question, then, is not whether or not accountability can be achieved, but what point on the accountability continuum can be achieved by a given country. I hypothesize that there are three factors that make accountability more or less feasible in a particular country: international/external influences, the balance of forces between civilians and the military and or government and opposition forces, and the extent and nature of previous rights abuses. Finally, as the relatively small literature that does address factors affecting accountability runs the risk of being too deterministic, I argue that there are also strategies of transition, trade-offs and compromises that regimes (and international actors assisting them) may make in an attempt to achieve greater accountability or greater stability. It is these last two practical aspects that the dissertation emphasizes, articulating and investigating hypotheses about what makes accountability more or less feasible and what strategies can be deployed to achieve greater accountability (or alternatively, greater reform). The result is a more nuanced understanding of the different conditions and possibilities that countries face, and the lesson that there is no one-size-fits-all prescription that can be handed to transitional regimes considering the legacy of the past. |
