Understanding the Politics of Redress
Panel Chairs:
Kathrin Braun, Institute of Political Science, University of Hanover, k.braun@ipw.uni-hannover.de
Svea Luise Herrmann, Institute of Political Science, University of Hanover, s.herrmann@ipw.uni-hannover.de
Abstract:
The past two decades have seen a proliferation of restitution cases, official apologies, and debates on reparation schemes all over the world. Historic injustices, from genocide and slavery to forced assimilation and coercive sterilization, that had been official state policy in the past, have become subject to political and public debates and struggles for reparations on the part of the victims. Whereas in some instances, governments have actually set up reparation policies, in other cases such claims remained largely unsuccessful. Also, reparation policies have taken very different forms and have been implemented in different ways. The panel will explore the dynamics of the politics of redress in a comparative perspective. It will investigate the formation and implementation of reparation policies, or the lack thereof, in their respective cultural and historic context and pay specific attention to interactions between state and civil society actors and the role of victims and their organizations in the policy process.
We specifically welcome case studies that examine the role of interpretative frames and narratives, the construction of identities and the allocation of speaking positions in the policy process. Questions to be addressed might be, but are not limited to:
- How is the historic injustice at stake discursively constructed?
- (How) Is it demarcated against ongoing practices?
- How is the past separated from the present? Which speaking positions are made available to victims and which are not?
- Which collective identities, values, and memories are mobilized, constructed and reconstructed in the debate?
