Understanding Victims’ Justice: Perspectives from Post-Conflict Settings in Africa

Featuring

David Backer

Assistant Professor of Government, College of William and Mary;Visiting Fellow, Kroc Institute

Transitions from conflict raise hard questions about how to address past violence and human rights abuses. The literature is dominated by discussions of moral and legal principles, histories of institutions and processes, and assessments of macro-level outcomes. Yet micro-level studies—especially those involving primary research with victims of violations—are rare. As a result, much of the conventional wisdom about individuals’ attitudes in these settings remains unsubstantiated by rigorous empirical evidence. 

Between 2000 and 2008, David Backer collected original data from surveys of more than 3,000 victims in Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and South Africa. He will present an analysis of his findings, characterizing respondents’ preferences about different dimensions of justice and examining the relationships between victims’ participation in and evaluation of formal measures (prosecutions, truth commissions, reparations, amnesty, etc.) and their perceptions of whether they have achieved justice.

Free and open to the public.
A light lunch will be available before the lecture.