POLS 3307 - Violence, Peace, and Justice

Three hours lecture. Three credit hours.

The course explores how societies deal with the legacies of violence and human rights abuses- e.g. how they punish those responsible, rehabilitate victims, heal deep social and ideological divisions, and remember ( or forget) the past. Students survey the transitional justice field to examine a range of conceptual, empirical, and ethical questions related to dealing with histories of conflict and repression. Topics may include: how transitional justice influences democratization processes; why countries deal with troubled pasts in different ways; the role of the international community in transitional justice processes; the tension between different conceptions of and demands for justice that exist at local, national, and international levels; and the moral bases for engaging in different forms of transitional justice.