The Palliative Role of Reparations in Reconciling Societies with the Past: Redressing Victims or Consolidating the State?

Abstract

Reparations as a transitional justice mechanism to remedy victims' harm, with an emphasis on state-building and a liberal market democracy, can clash with other post-conflict goals of reconciliation and the prevention of future violations. This article reviews the claimed goals and expectations for reparations, exploring especially their relationship with reconciliation and guarantees of non-recurrence. Drawing from fieldwork in multiple jurisdictions, we explore the complexity of reparations in practice. We assess whether reparations operate primarily as a palliative solution to the violence of the past that aims to settle and foreclose political contestation, rather than addressing root causes of violence.