Introduction: Civil Society in African Transitional Justice—Comparing Theory and Practice

Abstract

Through a close reading of the case studies in this collected volume, which focus on local civil society’s role in shaping transitional justice in diverse country contexts across Africa, this introductory chapter examines how civil society theory affects practitioners’ thinking on and practice of transitional justice on the continent. Civil society theory can be characterised as having a mainstream approach, aligned with the dominant (neo)liberal paradigm, and a broader collection of alternative approaches that seek to describe realities on the ground in postcolonial states and are largely positioned as alternatives to the Eurocentrism of mainstream thinking. The main tensions between mainstream and alternative approaches concern the nature of the relationship between the state and civil society, the validity of positioning (human rights) nongovernmental organisations as the most legitimate form of civil society and the significance of associational life based on sectarian ties. They also concern the role of ‘uncivil’ collective action, the extent of the divide between private and public, and the possible marginalisation of various local, regional and global dynamics with the centring of the state implied by the state–civil society binary. I argue that although most of the case studies are aligned with alternative thinking on transitional justice and demonstrate alternative thinking on civil society, they also suggest that the practice of transitional justice is constrained by mainstream conceptions of civil society.