From victimhood to political protagonism: Victim groups and associations in the process of dealing with a violent past

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the organised victims as collective political actors in post-conflict-societies. After proposing a typology of victim groups and pointing out the particularities of post-authoritarian human rights policies the political role of the victim organisations will be analysed. It will be argued, that the existence of political relevant victim groups is a necessary pre-condition for broader attempts to deal with the past human rights violations. Victim groups are essential for putting the issue on the public and political agenda. But while the existence of these groups is a necessary condition, it is by no means a sufficient one. Whether they are able to succeed or not depends on a variety of different aspects. Finally, it will be pointed out that the victim groups also play a tragic role, since their fundamental goals can never be realised.