Governing Truth

Abstract Who governs transitional justice (TJ)—the regime to deliver truth, justice, reparations, and guarantees of nonrepetition after political violence? Governing Truth argues that TJ is a transnational, civil society-led regime, not a domestic, government-led process, as much existing scholarship suggests. TJ arises from domestic civil society groups’ influence on governments from below and international civil society groups’ influence from above. Composing a global network, they give governments the impetus to adopt TJ institutions, design them to succeed, and follow up on them with additional measures. The network’s influence is based on members’ advocacy, technical expertise, and operational assistance to governments. Network members burden share, exercising their comparative advantages—in information, experience, material resources, and political power—and alternating leadership and support roles at different stages to enhance their chances of success. Governing Truth thus produces a new model of transnational advocacy networks, the burden sharing model, which goes beyond policy advocacy and brings attention to civil society’s essential role in policy design, delivery, and follow-up. Leveraging the institution of truth commissions, Kelebogile Zvobgo presents evidence from statistical analyses of a series of novel datasets, the Varieties of Truth Commissions, which jointly capture (1) the universe of commissions, (2) their mandates and powers, (3) their recommendations, and (4) levels of implementation across recommendations. She also presents case studies using evidence from her fieldwork, including interviews and focus groups with government officials, former commission leaders, representatives of international organizations and international NGOs, and human rights stakeholders in more than a dozen countries.