Do Truth Commissions Contribute to Democratic Governance? How?

• In Event: New Directions in Transitional Justice

Abstract

The impacts of truth commissions on democratic governance are unclear. Some scholarship suggests that these commissions contribute to the consolidation or deepening of liberal and participatory democracy but existing research has not found strong or consistent effects on democracy and democratization, in part because of inadequate conceptualizations of both truth commissions and democratic governance. Scholars have begun to address these issues by measuring variation in the quality of truth commissions. However, the quantitative measures of democracy commonly used in existing research (Polity IV, Freedom House) largely reflect the democratic values of electoral contestation, political rights, and broad executive constraints. These measures fail to capture some of the most relevant dimensions of democratic governance from a transitional justice perspective, in which truth commissions advance democracy by contributing to democratic political culture and rule of law reforms. Such reforms include bringing the military under civilian control, dismissing the leadership of tainted security forces, and, importantly, strengthening judicial independence and horizontal (i.e. non-electoral) accountability for abuses. This paper disaggregates dimensions of democratic governance in order to specify and test mechanisms of truth commission impacts.

Authors

• Geoff Dancy, Tulane University

• Oskar Timo Thoms, Simon Fraser University