CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2011
| Author | Benavides Ambrocio, Sara Elisa |
|---|---|
| Title | Time and Politics: Transitional Justice in Hungary and Spain |
| Summary | Over the past twenty years, ‘transitional justice’ (TJ) has increasingly gained recognition as a coherent ‘field’ of scholarship. Derived from practice, the field seeks to explore what it means to obtain justice in the aftermath of conflict or authoritarianism during which grave human rights violations occurred. Debates concerning methods of accountability and the adequacy of truth as a form of justice have dominated. This growth of TJ as a field has helped define what is expected from a democratic state, especially with regards to truth and transparency. In turn, the traction of these transitional justice norms has succeeded in forcing states to revisit attempts to hide or obscure past abuse. Developments concerning the ‘right to truth’ and the imperative of ending impunity mean that a policy of ‘forgetting’ is simply no longer tenable in this legalized international domain. This thesis challenges the claim that the passage of time necessarily serves to ameliorate popular desire to (re)examine the past. Rather, as confidence in the stability of democracy increases, the voicing of critical opinions about the past becomes easier – no longer silenced by the legacy of fear which persists in the immediate post-transition phase. Thus, the passage of time makes calls for TJ processes more likely. However, the thesis also posits that transitional justice delayed stands a much higher chance of being politicized to the detriment of justice demands. It seeks to illustrate these arguments through ‘thick’ description of specific approaches to ‘dealing with the past’ in Spain and in Hungary. |
| Supervisor | Hamilton, Michael |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2011/benavides_sara.pdf |
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