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Transitional justice in the world, 1970-2007: Insights from a new dataset

Tricia D Olsen, Leigh A Payne and Andrew G Reiter
Journal of Peace Research 2010 47: 803
DOI: 10.1177/0022343310382205

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Special Data Feature

Journal of Peace Research

47(6) 803–809
Transitional justice in the world, ª The Author(s) 2010
Reprints and permission:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
1970–2007: Insights from a new dataset DOI: 10.1177/0022343310382205
jpr.sagepub.com

Tricia D Olsen
Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Leigh A Payne
Department of Sociology and Latin American Centre, University of Oxford
Andrew G Reiter
Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Abstract
This article presents a new dataset of transitional justice mechanisms utilized worldwide from 1970–2007. These data
complement the growing body of quantitative and comparative analyses of transitional justice. This article summarizes three
important contributions made by the dataset. First, it includes five transitional justice mechanisms (trials, truth commissions,
amnesties, reparations, and lustration policies), allowing scholars to avoid many of the methodological errors committed by per-
forming single-mechanism studies. Second, it provides an expanded sample, both temporally and geographically, to facilitate
greater comparative and policy impact. Third, the dataset enables scholars to analyze transitional justice across a variety of polit-
ical contexts, including democratic transitions and civil wars. These data illuminate a new set of general trends and patterns in the
implementation of transitional justice worldwide. The findings show that countries adopt amnesties more often than other
mechanisms. They predominantly grant them in the context of civil war and to opponents of the state, rather than state agents.
Courts rarely prosecute those currently in power for human rights violations. In civil war settings, rebels, rather than state actors,
face trials. In post-authoritarian settings, courts try former authoritarian actors, but do not address crimes committed by the
opposition to authoritarian rule. The dataset also reveals regional patterns of mechanism usage. Trials, lustration policies, and
reparations occur most often in Europe. Non-European countries more frequently adopt truth commissions and amnesties than
do their European counterparts, with a particularly high number of amnesties granted in Latin America.

Keywords
amnesties, justice, transitional trials, truth commissions

Introduction and in post-conflict reconstruction. Recent efforts underway

Societies emerging from periods of state repression and armed
conflict have pursued a variety of processes intended to address
past human rights violations. The array of mechanisms avail-
able to states are collectively referred to as transitional justice
and include distinct models of truth commissions, trials, and
vetting processes intended to hold perpetrators accountable;
victim-oriented restorative justice processes, including repara-
tions, monuments, and public memory projects; and amnes-
ties that seek to officially recognize but pardon past acts.
Despite significant geographic and institutional variation,
transitional justice mechanisms share a common set of goals:
to avoid ‘repeating, reenacting, or reliving past horrors’; deter
future violations; and restore the dignity of citizens victimized
by atrocity (Bhargava, 2000: 54).
Transitional justice decisions increasingly take center stage
during regime changes from authoritarian to democratic rule,
in Colombia, Indonesia, Uganda, and Liberia suggest that
transitional justice will continue to remain at the forefront
of international and domestic policy debates. In response,
international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), such
as the International Center for Transitional Justice, now focus
on assisting countries in developing appropriate transitional
justice policies. A corresponding academic literature and many
university programs devoted to the topic have also emerged.1
Quantitative analysis of transitional justice, however, remains
underdeveloped. Much of the existing scholarly work relies on
Correspondence:
tdolsen@wisc.edu, leigh.payne@sant.ox.ac.uk, or reiter@wisc.edu
1
For a comprehensive bibliography on transitional justice see
https://sites.google.com/site/transitionaljusticedatabase/transitional-justice-
bibliography.

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804
single-case or small-N studies. Attempts at generating data on
transitional justice have been mainly limited to a small set of
cases or one particular mechanism. Scholars have called for
comparative data to better analyze existing assumptions
derived from single-case and single-mechanism studies and
to highlight new puzzles and avenues for research.
This article introduces such a project: a new, global dataset
on transitional justice mechanisms (Olsen, Payne & Reiter
2010). Our dataset includes five distinct mechanisms – trials,
truth commissions, amnesties, reparations, and lustration pol-
icies – in 123 countries that experienced civil war or transi-
tioned from authoritarian rule from 1970 to 2007. We
begin this article by reviewing existing quantitative research
on transitional justice to illustrate how our work builds on pre-
vious data collection efforts. We then define the concept of
transitional justice and the five transitional justice mechanisms
and outline our data collection procedures. Next, we present
general findings from the dataset, highlighting global trends
in transitional justice across regions and within different polit-
ical contexts. Finally, we propose ideas for future research and
data collection efforts.
Why a transitional justice dataset?
Existing quantitative studies of transitional justice tend to
focus on single countries. Gibson (2004, 2006), for example,
utilizes survey data from South Africa to assess the impact of
the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Meernik (2005) studies the effects of arrests and judgments
made by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia with event history analysis. Comparative studies
tend to explore transitional justice through qualitative analysis.
David (2003) examines lustration laws in Eastern Europe, and
Pion-Berlin (1993) compares transitional justice choices in the
aftermath of authoritarianism – Latin America’s Southern
Cone, for example. In two larger comparative studies, Call
(2007) evaluates security and justice reforms in eight post-
conflict states, and Stromseth, Wippman & Brooks (2006)
investigate the effect of trials on the rule of law following peri-
ods of international intervention. Their important contribu-
tions to the literature notwithstanding, these studies do not
explore the generalizability of findings across an array of polit-
ical contexts and regions.
The studies that do so tend to focus on particular mechan-
isms. Hayner’s (2001) seminal work on truth commissions
examines 21 different commissions around the world and
establishes the most widely accepted definition of this mechan-
ism. Dancy, Kim & Wiebelhaus-Brahm (2010) build upon
Hayner’s work in their Truth Commission Database Project.
Mallinder’s (2008) Amnesty Law Database presents descrip-
tions and analysis of over 500 amnesty laws promulgated
worldwide since World War II. Sikkink & Walling (2007)
develop a new dataset on human rights trials by analyzing
US Department of State Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices for countries that have transitioned to democracy
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journal of PEACE RESEARCH 47(6)
from authoritarian rule. Kim & Sikkink (2010) have recently
added truth commissions to this analysis. While these studies
have advanced our understanding of transitional justice
mechanisms, areas for significant expansion and improvement
still exist. Mechanism-specific data can overlook important
patterns within transitional justice choices – why state actors
choose one mechanism over another, select many mechanisms
in tandem, or sequence their mechanisms in particular ways
over time. Sikkink & Walling (2007), for example, provide
evidence of a justice cascade in recent decades, whereby states
increasingly hold perpetrators accountable through trials. Yet
Mallinder (2008) demonstrates an equally persistent use of
amnesty during the same period. A dataset containing infor-
mation on multiple mechanisms has the ability to compare
trends and build theory around transitional justice.
Notable exceptions to the single-country, single-
mechanism approaches face another set of research challenges.
Backer (2004) and Skaar (1999) present data on a variety of
transitional justice mechanisms over three decades. They
include only transitional democracies in their datasets, how-
ever, and rely exclusively on secondary sources for their cod-
ing. The Civil War and Transitional Justice Dataset
(Binningsbø, Elster & Gates, 2005; Lie, Binningsbø & Gates,
2007) employs systematic analysis of primary sources, but
focuses solely on internal armed conflict and mechanisms
implemented in the aftermath of such conflicts.
To overcome the limitations of existing studies, we pro-
duced the largest empirically-based, cross-national dataset on
transitional justice practices worldwide. The dataset improves
on existing studies in three ways. First, we examine multiple
mechanisms – trials, truth commissions, amnesties, repara-
tions, and lustration policies – thereby avoiding the methodo-
logical errors inherent in single-mechanism analyses. Including
multiple mechanisms further allows researchers to more effec-
tively test the hypotheses in the literature concerning states’
choices. Rather than trade-offs between mechanisms (e.g.
truth vs. justice or impunity vs. accountability), we contend
that states select a variety of mechanisms to deal with the vio-
lent past. Amnesties persist, for example, alongside trials and
truth commissions.
Second, the global and historic nature of our dataset
allows us to identify temporal and geographic trends in tran-
sitional justice implementation. Our data cover nearly four
decades, enabling us to identify long-term trends in state
practices as well as shifts that correspond to global events,
such as the collapse of the Soviet Union. With the expanded
temporal scope, we can analyze the entire third wave of
democracy, the large set of post-Cold War transitions, and
the armed conflicts that have fueled the recent expansion
of transitional justice since the mid-1990s. The global
dimension of the dataset also allows us to avoid potential
regional biases. Finally, we examine the employment of
mechanisms as a response to civil wars and transitions from
authoritarian rule to democracy. This broad scope facilitates
a more comprehensive understanding of the adoption,
Olsen, Payne & Reiter
sequencing, and outcome of a range of transitional justice
mechanisms in a variety of political contexts.
Defining transitional justice
Despite the proliferation of transitional justice studies, scholars
do not always agree on the meaning of the concept. Early scho-
larship emphasized the use of mechanisms to ensure democra-
tization. Founding transitional justice scholars framed the
discussion around the issues that arise ‘when a government
that has engaged in gross violations of human rights is suc-
ceeded by a regime more inclined to respect those rights’ (Hen-
kin, 1989: 1). In her genealogy of the field, Teitel (2003)
associates transitional justice ‘with periods of political change’,
intended to ‘confront the wrongdoings of repressive predecessor
regimes’ (p. 69). Following the United Nations’ involvement in
the aftermath of the Balkan wars and the Rwandan genocide,
scholars focused on post-conflict justice (Bassiouni, 2002).
More recently, academics have conceptualized transitional jus-
tice as occurring ‘in the aftermath of atrocity’ (Cobban, 2007)
or ‘following a period of conflict, civil strife or repression’
(Roht-Arriaza, 2006). We adopt this contemporary concept of
transitional justice, as the array of processes designed to address
systematic or widespread human rights violations committed
during periods of state repression or armed conflict, where
human rights violations are defined as extrajudicial killings, dis-
appearances, torture, and arbitrary arrest and imprisonment.
Conceptualizing transitional justice broadly provides scho-
lars with the necessary data to grapple with the complexities
surrounding it. For example, the existence or direction of a
causal relationship between political transitions and the adop-
tion of transitional justice is largely unknown. In some cases,
states adopt mechanisms as part of peace processes to pave the
way toward a transition. The Colombian Justice and Peace
Law, for example, began in the midst of armed conflict. In
other cases, transitional justice occurs long after a political
transition. Japanese reparations to comfort women or delayed
human rights trials in Argentina and Chile, for example, sug-
gest that mechanisms do not necessarily coincide with either
the transitional moment in which they evolve or the historical
moment in which abuses occurred. In other words, when
countries pursue transitional justice mechanisms remains an
empirical question that only a dataset like ours can address.
Researchers similarly disagree over the ‘justice’ concept in the
term. For some, ‘justice’ requires retributive or prosecutorial
measures that hold perpetrators accountable for abuses. Others
allow for restorative and non-prosecutorial mechanisms that
heal victims and bring reconciliation to societies. Still others
value amnesty as a mechanism that acknowledges wrongdoing,
but releases societies from the trap of the past. Rather than
making normative assumptions about the appropriate form
of justice, our dataset recognizes that societies adopt a variety
of mechanisms to engage their violent pasts and allows scholars
to include or exclude specific mechanisms based upon their
own operationalization of transitional justice.
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805
Transitional justice mechanisms
The universe of transitional justice consists of a wide range of
mechanisms, including writing new constitutions, creating
new government offices to address future human rights viola-
tions, reforming the judiciary and security sector, and con-
structing museums and memorials. We limit our analysis to
the five main mechanisms most commonly recognized by
scholars and practitioners as transitional justice: trials, truth
commissions, amnesties, reparations, and lustration. We do
so to avoid the danger of concept-stretching and to ensure the
quality, consistency, and completeness of our data.
We define trials where perpetrators of human rights viola-
tions are held criminally accountable in a court of law. To be
counted in the dataset, a verdict must conclude the trial. Pre-
vious studies count all years that prosecutorial activity is
underway, whether or not they reach a verdict. We include
three sets of prosecutions in our dataset: armed conflict by state
and/or non-state actors; human rights violations by state actors
against their own citizens; and domestic political violence by
non-state actors. The court may be domestic, international,
or a hybrid body jointly administered by international and
domestic actors.2
Truth commissions are defined as newly established,
temporary bodies officially sanctioned by the state or an
international governmental organization to investigate a pat-
tern of human rights abuses and that issue a report.3 Our
definition closely matches Hayner (2001) and Dancy, Kim
& Wiebelhaus-Brahm (2010). We exclude pre-existing gov-
ernment institutions that investigate human rights violations
as part of their official duties. We also exclude commissions
created to investigate corruption, embezzlement, fraud, and
similar crimes. To be included in the dataset, the truth com-
mission must complete its work and issue its findings.
We include amnesties in our dataset, despite the fact that
many prominent transitional justice studies exclude them
(e.g. Roht-Arriaza & Mariezcurrena, 2006).4 We concur with
Snyder & Vinjamuri (2003) and others that state leaders con-
sider amnesty a tool for resolving past atrocities. Scholars who
2
We do not include universal jurisdiction, defined as trials in one country for
crimes committed in another. While this is an interesting avenue for research,
such events say more about the state of human rights in the country in which
the trial was held, rather than in the country in which the crimes were
committed, which is the concern of this project. Nor do we include
regional courts. The majority of these cases do not address human rights
violations as defined in our analysis. The European Court of Human
Rights, for example, has made over 10,000 judgments, the vast majority of
which would not qualify. Extracting the relevant cases is simply beyond the
scope of this project. Finally, the International Criminal Court is excluded
because to date it has yet to render a verdict.
3
We exclude non-state projects that investigate and uncover the truth about
past violations, since they do not represent official decisions on behalf of state
actors. Future research could expand the dataset and catalogue these efforts.
4
While we recognize the de jure distinction between amnesty and pardon, in
most cases, there is no de facto distinction between the two. As such, we
include both under the term amnesty.
806
include amnesty argue that an official declaration of an
amnesty by a state serves as a formal acknowledgement of the
crimes committed. This public acknowledgement may influ-
ence societal understanding of past atrocities and legitimize
victims’ claims against perpetrators. We code amnesties when
a state officially declares that those accused or convicted of
human rights violations, whether individuals or groups,
will not be prosecuted or further prosecuted, and/or will be
pardoned for their crimes and released from prison.
We define reparations as a state’s official grant of monetary
payments, property, or other forms of restitution of monetary
value to victims, or to relatives of victims, of past human rights
violations (see De Greiff, 2006).5 Lastly, we code lustration
policies, which include vetting or purging individuals from
positions they currently hold and/or banning them from hold-
ing specific positions in the future (see Mayer-Rieckh & De
Greiff, 2007). Most lustration scholarship focuses on post-
Soviet Eastern Europe and the efforts by current governments
to distinguish themselves and their practices from the former
Communist regime (Boed, 1998; Ellis, 1996), but other
governments around the world have also used these policies
to address past atrocities. These policies do not necessarily
determine individuals’ responsibility for specific acts, but may
hold them accountable for groups with which they are associ-
ated (e.g. political party, ethnic or religious group, military).
Lustration policies can apply to government employment,
membership in the security forces, or both.
Data collection
To construct our dataset, we systematically analyze Keesing’s
World News Archives, a catalog of world events.6 Our deci-
sion to utilize Keesing’s is based on a combination of factors.
Keesing’s provides the coverage – geographically and tempo-
rally – necessary to develop a cross-national dataset of transi-
tional justice over nearly four decades. Utilizing news
sources from around the world, including newspapers and wire
services, and government reports, Keesing’s, moreover, pro-
vides an unparalleled source of unbiased summaries of world
events. Finally, Keesing’s constitutes a respected and reliable
resource for coverage of political, social, and economic events
(Engene, 2007), making it an appropriate resource for infor-
mation on transitional justice mechanisms.
While Keesing’s allows us to systematically document tran-
sitional justice mechanisms over the past four decades, we
acknowledge the potential limitations in using one source:
underreporting, bias, and incompleteness. Keesing’s may
underreport transitional justice mechanisms due to its six-step
5
We exclude reparations paid by non-state agents who may choose to com-
pensate individuals on their own. Many companies, for example, have since
paid reparations to victims of slave labor practices during Nazi Germany; such
acts are not included here.
6 9
Keesing’s World News Archives includes Keesing’s Contemporary Archives
(1931–87) and Keesing’s Record of World Events (1987–present).
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journal of PEACE RESEARCH 47(6)
process to determine coverage of events.7 If mechanisms are not
reported by other news agencies or by governments, for exam-
ple, they will not appear in Keesing’s. Despite these concerns
about underreporting, we found that Keesing’s covered more
transitional justice mechanisms than the secondary literature
and existing datasets. Keesing’s coverage could also reflect bias,
resulting in an emphasis on some mechanisms over others. Our
findings, however, support claims made in the existing litera-
ture and datasets: large numbers of trials and amnesties, and far
fewer truth commissions, lustration policies, and reparation
programs. A final concern involved the completeness of cover-
age. Keesing’s often identifies a transitional justice mechanism,
but fails to include specific information on that mechanism for
our analysis. We overcame this limitation by supplementing
Keesing’s with information culled from secondary sources. The
secondary sources were only used to supplement information
about a mechanism already found in Keesing’s; we did not use
secondary resources to add additional mechanisms to the
dataset.
Our dataset begins in 1970. While transitional justice
mechanisms occurred prior to that year, we chose this time
frame to capture the commencement of the third wave of
democracy, in which transitional justice began to assume a more
prominent role in the aftermath of political transitions. The
1970 start date includes the cases from which the majority of
transitional justice theory is based and that have sparked most
of the scholarly and policy interest in the subject.
The dataset includes all countries in the world that have
experienced a transition from authoritarian rule to democracy
or an internal armed conflict during our period of analysis. We
identify the subset of democratic transition cases by utilizing
Polity IV’s Regime Transition variable (Marshall & Jaggers,
2004).8 First, we code a transition-year for those countries that
experienced a regime change (defined by Polity as a three or
more point increase in the POLITY score) and that moved
from autocracy (a negative or zero score) to either a partial
democracy (score of 1–6) or a full democracy (score of 7–10).
Second, we code a transition year for those countries that are
coded in Polity’s REGTRANS variable as state transformation
(97) or state creation (99) and where the first year of the new
polity is a partial or full democracy and the previous polity was
autocratic. This process yields 91 transitions to democracy
in 74 countries from 1970–2004 (see replication file).9 We
code for mechanisms implemented during the transition
7
These steps are: (1) locate and authenticate a wide range of international news
sources; (2) examine and collate their news output on a daily basis; (3) compare
the facts and figures from different sources to distil the most accurate possible
information; (4) discard biased, speculative, misleading or inaccurate material;
(5) research and verify the remaining information; (6) use this raw material to
write articles which accurately summarize world events.
8
For a similar use of Polity IV’s data to determine democratic transitions see,
for example, Epstein et al. (2006); Sikkink & Walling (2007).
We are limited to 2004 rather than 2007 because of the coverage of the most
recent version of Polity IV at the time of the analysis.
Olsen, Payne & Reiter 807

(defined as two years prior to the transition year) and any year Table I. Transitional justice mechanisms (all cases)
following the transition through 2007.
Number of
We also identify a subset of cases of civil war. We include
Mechanism Number countries employing
cases of internal and internationalized-internal armed conflict
as identified by the Uppsala/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset, Trials 81 38
where armed conflict is defined as ‘a contested incompatibility Truth commissions 53 37
that concerns government and/or territory where the use of Amnesties 229 72
armed force between two parties, of which at least one is the Reparations 23 18
Lustration policies 34 23
government of a state, results in at least 25 battle-related
deaths’ (Gleditsch et al., 2002). Both minor conflicts
(25–999 battle-deaths per year) and major wars (more than Table II. Amnesties and trials (sample subsets)
1,000 battle-deaths in at least one year) are included. We
State
code a new, separate conflict if there are five or more years
Type agents Opponents Both Total
of peace between years of at least 25 battle-deaths.10 This
selection process yields 154 cases of internal armed conflict Amnesty - Civil war 2 150 40 192
in 92 countries (see replication file). We code for mechanisms Amnesty - Authoritarian rule 21 2 14 37
implemented during the civil war and in any year from the end Trials - Civil war 8 27 5 40
Trials - Authoritarian rule 41 0 0 41
of the conflict through 2007.11
With these data, scholars may choose the sample that
best suits their research interests (those countries that transi-
tioned to democracy and/or endured a civil war). We orga- Transitional justice in the world
nize the dataset in two formats. In one format, the The single-country, single-mechanism orientation of transi-
transitional justice mechanism is the unit of analysis and tional justice research tends to emphasize landmark cases, lead-
we provide a short description of each mechanism. We also ing to the perception of transitional justice as a response only
provide a panel-data format, where the country-year is the to the worst types of abuses such as genocide or apartheid. Our
unit of analysis with a dichotomous indicator for each tran- data, however, paint a different picture. We find that transi-
sitional justice mechanism utilized per country per year.12 tional justice mechanisms are utilized in the aftermath of vir-
The panel-data format, noting the years in which democratic tually every period of repression or violence. Notable
transitions occur and civil wars terminate, allows researchers variations exist over time, across cases, and between different
to explore the timing of political events and their relation- political contexts, but transitional justice has persisted as a
ship to the adoption of particular mechanisms.13 That rela- political tool to deal with past abuses throughout the world for
tionship reveals both the impact of transitional justice most of the past four decades. Our dataset contains 421
mechanisms on democratic transitions and peace processes mechanisms implemented worldwide since 1970 (Table I).
and the role that these political openings have on the adop- Amnesty, the most frequently used form of transitional
tion of mechanisms. justice, accounts for over one half of the mechanisms. To end
conflict and sustain peace, states tend to grant amnesties to
the opposition either during or after civil wars. Less com-
monly, states enact amnesties to address their own abuses.
10
This corresponds to the onset coding outlined in Strand (2006). This type of amnesty includes both self-amnesties granted
11
Of the 154 conflicts occurring from 1970 to 2007, 19 began prior to 1970. prior to regime change and amnesties passed by new regimes
We are not able to code for mechanisms during years of conflicts prior to
1970. Removing these cases, however, does not alter any of the patterns
for crimes committed under the previous regime. Our data
presented here. on trials reflects a similar pattern: in civil war contexts, states
12
While we acknowledge that mechanisms vary in the number of people they tend to prosecute their non-state opponents, while in post-
affect (for example, amnesties may apply to thousands while trials can be for authoritarian settings, states try agents of the prior regime
individuals), such data is not often available. Furthermore, the number of (Table II).14
individuals affected may not necessarily correspond to influence; the trial of
a top official, for example, may do more to deter future abuses than the
Our data also reveal interesting variation across regions and
trial of 20 low-level officials. Those concerned about this issue are advised transition type.15 We find that post-authoritarian states,
to utilize the panel-data format where, adopting a conservative approach,
we simply designate the presence or absence of specific mechanisms in a given
country-year.
13 14
The dataset allows researchers to calculate, for example, the number of years Whether an amnesty or trial covers state agents depends on whether the
between a transition to democracy and the adoption of particular mechanisms. individuals were agents of the state when they committed human rights
It also allows researchers to determine whether countries adopt these violations, not when the mechanism was implemented.
15
mechanisms before, during, or after civil war. Furthermore, countries often To define regions we use the UN’s region codes: http://unstats.un.org/
experience more than one transition or conflict, and these data reveal how unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm. Note that we combine Oceania and
countries’ approaches to human rights violations shift over time. Asia into one category.

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808 journal of PEACE RESEARCH 47(6)

Table III. Transitional justice mechanisms (region and sample subset) include the numbers and ranks of those held accountable, their
sentences, and appeals. More data on the level of reparations
Asia and
payments, the number of individuals and the types of crimes
Type Africa Oceania Europe Americas
covered by amnesty laws and lustration policies, or the differ-
Number of civil wars 56 72 18 18 ences in mandates among truth commissions would further
Number of democratic 29 21 22 19 enhance the dataset. We are currently involved in a new
transitions project that aims to generate more nuanced information
Trials regarding the types of trials, amnesties and truth commissions
Civil war 15 8 15 2
that have been used, and their impact.
Authoritarianism 3 1 21 16
Amnesties
Civil war 78 70 16 28
Replication data
Authoritarianism 10 6 6 15 Replication data for this article are available at http://www.
Truth commissions prio.no/jpr/datasets. The complete dataset and further infor-
Civil war 8 12 1 5 mation on the project are available on the Transitional Justice
Authoritarianism 10 3 4 10 Data Base Project website at https://sites.google.com/site/tran
Reparations sitionaljusticedatabase/.
Civil war 2 0 0 1
Authoritarianism 2 0 11 7 Acknowledgements
Lustration policies We would like to thank Scott Gehlbach, Scott Straus, Helga
Civil war 5 1 3 2
Authoritarianism 3 1 14 5 Malmin Binningsbø, and two anonymous reviewers who pro-
vided valuable comments on earlier drafts. We would also like
to acknowledge University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty and
graduate students who helped and encouraged us during the
initial stages of the project, including David Canon, Mark
particularly in Europe, lead in the implementation of lustra- Copelovitch, Charles Franklin, Courtney Hillebrecht, Herbert
tion policies and reparations. Europe also leads in trials, in Kritzer, Brett Kyle, Jon Pevehouse, and David Weimer.
both the civil war and authoritarian rule subsamples. Truth Nathan Marks and Jeffrey Wright provided invaluable
commissions spread evenly across Latin America, Africa, and Asia research assistance. The authors are listed in alphabetical order;
& Oceania. Countries adopt them nearly equally for civil wars equal co-authorship is implied.
(26) and authoritarian rule (27). All three non-European regions
demonstrate high use of amnesties after civil war. Latin America, Funding
in particular, shows an average of one and a half amnesties The project has received generous financial support from the
per civil war. This average no doubt reflects multiple amnesties United States Institute of Peace, the Smith Richardson Foun-
granted during long conflicts in Colombia, Guatemala, and dation, and Zennström Philanthropies, as well as various units
El Salvador. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to which it is greatly
indebted.

Conclusions and future areas of research References

This dataset provides scholars with the opportunity to explore
the causes and effects of transitional justice. It has already pro-
vided many interesting new insights, in particular on the use of
mechanisms across regions and varied political contexts. It fur-
ther allows for the identification of many of the factors that pre-
dict the adoption of particular transitional justice mechanisms,
as well as an assessment of what combinations and sequences of
mechanisms succeed in establishing peace, strengthening
democracy, and reducing human rights violations (Olsen, Payne
& Reiter, 2010). It thus builds on the knowledge generated
from single-case and single-mechanism studies by exploring
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We will update the dataset to include new mechanisms as
new conflicts and transitions occur. Future development of the
project could also include the coding of transitional justice
mechanisms prior to 1970. In addition, scholars might refine
data on specific mechanisms. Trials, for example, could
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TRICIA D OLSEN, b. 1979, PhD candidate in Political Science,
University of Wisconsin-Madison (2005– ); current research
interests: transitional justice, political economy of development,
and Latin America politics.
LEIGH A PAYNE, b. 1956, PhD in Political Science (Yale Uni-
versity, 1990); Professor of Political Science, University of
Wisconsin-Madison (2001–10); Professor of Sociology and Latin
America, University of Oxford (2009– ); most recent book:
Unsettling Accounts: Neither Truth nor Reconciliation in Confessions
of State Violence (Duke University Press, 2008).
ANDREW G REITER, b. 1981, PhD candidate in Political Sci-
ence, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2004– ); current research
interests: transitional justice, conflict resolution, civil war, and the
role of spoilers in the context of peace agreements.