Ideational Power and Institutional Change

Abstract

Abstract Over the past three decades, truth commissions (tc s) have proliferated globally as an institutional practice for addressing past human rights violations in transitional and post-conflict societies. In light of discursive institutionalism, which emphasises the significance of ideas and discourse in institutional formation, continuity, and change, this study aims to offer an alternative explanation for the international proliferation of tc s by examining the role of ideational power and the dynamics of continuity and change in their institutional construction from the mid-1980s to the early 2000s. It analyses how particular agents, such as human rights movements, political leaders, and transnational discursive coalitions, construct, disseminate, and transform the idea of tc s in a historically and socially given context. Using process tracing to shed light on the institutional development of tc s, it identifies four phases in their discursive construction: i) discursive invention; ii) transnational recognition; iii) technical fine-tuning and intellectual consensus building, and iv) incorporation into new fields.