Societies Emerging from Conflict: The Aftermath of Atrocity

Does the proliferation of post-atrocity remedies over the past 25-plus years-the human rights movement, reparations and other justice schemes, and memorials and counter-memorials-suggest promising alternatives to retributive criminal proceedings? Or does it mean that very little so far is working? This collection of essays, written by scholars with ties to Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Canada, Ghana, Indonesia, Iraq, and the United States, argues that a new post-atrocity framework is taking root. In search for a more reliably favorable post-atrocity succession, the volume’s contributors weigh the merits of practices circumventing the state, whose anemic performance has failed to manage large-scale violence and restore confidence in social stability and security. This ascendant phase includes citizen activism, historical dialogues, and witnesses’ accounts. Into the breach where state actors prevailed, citizens from below are seizing opportunities for independent intervention. While all transitional frameworks are vulnerable, this volume provides a thoughtful, requisite evaluation of citizen activism for scholars, non-governmental organization practitioners, government and think-tank policymakers, and teachers at all levels.