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Transformation – Overcoming the Limits of Liberal Peace and Transitional Justice in Deeply Divided Societies: Reconciliation in Liberal Peace Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2021

Or Avi-Guy
Or Avi-Guy*
Affiliation:
The Minerva Center for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
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Abstract

This article explores the tension between the theoretical conceptualisations of liberal peace, transitional justice and reconciliation by focusing on power sharing as a liberal peace institution-building mechanism. Power sharing is based on the premise that identities in conflict in deeply divided societies are difficult, if not impossible, to change. The article outlines the limitations of liberal peace by demonstrating how the implementation of power-sharing arrangements creates a political reality in which conflict patterns are further entrenched, thus hindering the prospects of conflict transformation. In order to address the limitations of liberal peace, the article draws on models of transformative justice to highlight the growing need for a new conceptualisation of reconciliation as a political and transformative concept, in which both justice and reconciliation are recognised as intrinsic goals for post-conflict societies. Thus, the re-establishment of political structures and institutional reforms is envisaged not only as a tool to promote political stability, but as a means of facilitating transformation in conflict patterns in the political and social spheres.

Keywords

liberal peacetransitional justicepolitical reconciliationethnic conflictspower sharing
Type
Articles
Information
Israel Law Review , Volume 54 , Issue 3 , November 2021 , pp. 289 - 304
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press in association with the Faculty of Law, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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