Andrew G. Reiter

The Justice Balance: When Transitional Justice Improves Human Rights and Democracy

Evidence from the Transitional Justice Data Base reveals which transitional justice mechanisms and combinations of mechanisms positively or negatively affect human rights and democracy. This article demonstrates that specific combinations of mechanisms—trials and amnesties; and trials, amnesties, and truth commissions—generate improvements in those two political goals. The findings support a justice balance approach to transitional justice: trials provide accountability and amnesties provide stability, advancing democracy and respect for human rights. The project further illustrates that, all else being equal, truth commissions alone have a negative impact on the two political objectives, but contribute positively when combined with trials and amnesty.

Transitional justice in the world, 1970-2007: Insights from a new dataset

This article presents a new dataset of transitional justice mechanisms utilized worldwide from 1970—2007. These data complement the growing body of quantitative and comparative analyses of transitional justice. This article summarizes three important contributions made by the dataset. First, it includes five transitional justice mechanisms (trials, truth commissions, amnesties, reparations, and lustration policies), allowing scholars to avoid many of the methodological errors committed by performing single-mechanism studies. Second, it provides an expanded sample, both temporally and geographically, to facilitate greater comparative and policy impact. Third, the dataset enables scholars to analyze transitional justice across a variety of political contexts, including democratic transitions and civil wars. These data illuminate a new set of general trends and patterns in the implementation of transitional justice worldwide. The findings show that countries adopt amnesties more often than other mechanisms. They predominantly grant them in the context of civil war and to opponents of the state, rather than state agents. Courts rarely prosecute those currently in power for human rights violations. In civil war settings, rebels, rather than state actors, face trials. In post-authoritarian settings, courts try former authoritarian actors, but do not address crimes committed by the opposition to authoritarian rule. The dataset also reveals regional patterns of mechanism usage. Trials, lustration policies, and reparations occur most often in Europe. Non-European countries more frequently adopt truth commissions and amnesties than do their European counterparts, with a particularly high number of amnesties granted in Latin America.

Does Spoiling Work? Assessing the Impact of Spoilers on Civil War Peace Agreements

Scholars and policymakers argue that violent actors – termed ‘spoilers’ – pose a significant threat to civil war peace agreements. Yet existing research, which is overly reliant on single-case studies, has not effectively determined how prevalent spoiling is, or thoroughly examined what its ultimate effects are on peace agreements. This article draws on a newly constructed cross-national dataset of spoiling following 241 civil war peace agreements in the post-Cold War era to analyze spoiling. It finds that spoiling intended to terminate an agreement is not as common as typically assumed, but still plagues a sizeable number of peace agreements. Moreover, most actors who resort to this strategy typically fail in their goals and the agreement is not at risk, despite the high publicity and attention given to these threats. Yet particular types of actors, most notably paramilitaries and state security forces excluded from the agreement, can pose a significant threat to peace.

Dictating Justice Human Rights and Military Courts in Latin America

Militaries throughout the world operate their own courts to prosecute military crimes, such as insubordination, that are not part of civilian legal codes. Latin American militaries traditionally have extended this hermetic justice system to cover all crimes committed by their personnel, allowing the institution to sit in judgment of its own actions and escape punishment for human rights violations. This parallel legal system erodes the principle of equality before the law, threatens civilian control of the military, and nurtures a culture of impunity. This article develops a theoretical model to explain the state of military court jurisdiction over military personnel for human rights violations in democracies. It then empirically tests this model on seventeen cases in Latin America. The article concludes that the variation in reform of military courts is a result of the relative balance between the extent of military autonomy and the strength of the civilian reform movement.

Taking Stock: Transitional Justice and Market Effects in Latin America

The relationship between transitional justice and economic development has recently attracted the attention of academics and policymakers. An emerging literature highlights the tension between the forward-looking economic goals of growth, development, and investment and backward-looking trials and truth commissions. Current research focuses on the impact transitional justice choices may have on a states ability to compete for international assistance or to embark on economic reconstruction following periods of civil war and authoritarianism. This article broadens the scope of the study of the political economy of transitional justice by examining the effect of transitional justice on the perceptions of private investors. Specifically, we articulate two competing theories of investor preferences toward transitional justice—“Development through Stability” and “Development though Justice”—and explore how stock markets in Argentina, Chile, and Brazil have responded to efforts to address past human rights abuses over time. The article argues that investor reaction is country specific: Investors in Argentina view trials as destabilizing and have reacted positively to amnesties; in Chile, investors view trials positively; and in Brazil, investors viewed early efforts to pursue the truth or grant reparations negatively, but these reactions have tempered over time. The article concludes by suggesting future avenues for research on the relationship between transitional justice and private investors.

Where Spoiling Occurs

This chapter develops and quantitatively tests hypotheses from competing theoretical approaches on where spoiling occurs. Overall, spoiling is prevalent following peace agreements, with 65 of the 301 peace agreements and 46 of the 138 peace processes experiencing spoiling. The emergence of spoiling also follows predictable patterns. Termination spoiling is primarily a weapon of the weak. Outsiders are more likely to challenge peace agreements, particularly those that are comprehensive, in conflicts with a lack of lootable resources. Modification spoiling, on the other hand, is driven mostly by incentives: the greatest predictors are comprehensive peace agreements, civil wars fought over control of the central government, and more politically open systems—in situations where the stakes are the highest and the impact on future political power the greatest.

Who Spoils and Why

This chapter demonstrates that a variety of actors—inside and outside the peace agreement—can resort to spoiling: the state, the military, paramilitary groups, other domestic opposition forces, rebels, and rebel factions. In addition, the objectives and capabilities of these actors can vary considerably across cases. The chapter defines two types of spoiling: “termination spoiling”—spoiling intended to terminate a peace agreement; and “modification spoiling”—spoiling aimed at forcing modifications to an agreement or its implementation. Using the new dataset, the chapter shows spoiling intended to modify an agreement is just as common as that intended to terminate an agreement, demonstrating that spoiling is a tactic used to achieve a wide range of goals, not just a behavior attributed to extremists who oppose peace.

Introduction: When Peace Begets Violence

The introduction begins with a discussion of how various actors have used violence to attempt to “spoil” peace agreements, representing a real threat to peace and security in the eyes of scholars and policymakers. Yet the chapter shows that we still know little about who spoilers are, where and why they are active, and what ultimate impact their behavior has on peace, in turn preventing the development of effective policies. I make the argument for a new approach to examine spoiling broadly and cross-nationally to remedy these deficiencies. The chapter then outlines the research design and methodology for the creation and analysis of a new cross-national dataset of spoiling.

Conclusion: Implications for Theory and Practice

The conclusion summarizes the key findings from the book and then proceeds to discuss the policy implications of the work for dealing with spoilers. The policy implications are four-pronged, centering on the accurate prediction of where spoilers will emerge, a strategy of targeted inclusion in peace negotiations, continued negotiation with actors during the implementation phase, and coercion as a last resort for particular types of spoilers. The chapter concludes with thoughts on future research to continue to improve our understanding of spoiling.

Modification Spoiling: Bargaining and Enforcement

Modification spoiling is effective when used by actors with strong capabilities. Powerful outside actors, who were not sufficiently consulted during the negotiation of the peace agreement, are extremely successful in forcing insiders to appease them and modify the agreement. In addition, strong insiders are successful in garnering key modifications to peace agreements that increase their benefits. Modification spoiling also has the effect of recommitting insiders to existing agreements or encouraging them to further negotiate ill-defined issues or alter overly ambitious timelines. Modification thus spoiling typically leads to a stronger peace. In some cases, however, spoiling is a signal of impending peace failure, with actors making unrealizable demands for modifications or insincere claims about implementation failures.