Deepening understandings of success and failure in post-conflict reconciliation

Abstract

Is failure in reconciliation reversible, or does it become over determined at some point? Can signs both of reconciliation and its failures co-exist and survive at different levels of peacebuilding? Should we be thinking in terms of ‘reconciliation’ or even ‘reconciliations’ instead of ‘Reconciliation’ with a Big R? To address these questions, this article stresses the factors that emerge from five case studies: 1) the treatment, definitions and feelings of victims of the conflict; 2) the continuation of violence in new forms; 3) the political power struggles that were left unchanged by the conflict; 4) the lack of political will for change, particularly to structures of economic injustice; 5) divisions between national elites and local populations; 6) the role of external actors; 7) deeply entrenched conflict identities and narratives; and 8) the multi-faceted factor of time in assessing success versus failure.