Too Long a Sacrifice?’

In a field that of late appears beset by crises of confidence, this essay reviews three books that send transitional justice scholarship back to basics. The focus in the books on post-authoritarian settings sheds light on the effects of time on transitional justice expectations, actions and futures. The books also offer rear-view mirror vantage points on the assumptions, teleological and otherwise, that informed early praxis in the field. The common object of interest addressed by these volumes – authoritarian regimes and transitional responses to them, over time – is significant in itself. It also reminds us, firstly, that transitional justice dynamics are not reducible to immediate policy menus, and, secondly, that they do not disappear when intellectual fashions change

Authoritarianism · Democracy · Economic Justice · Political science · Politics · Sacrifice · Theology · Transitional justice · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · International Law and Human Rights · Law · Philosophy