Abstract
ABSTRACT This article shows that for post-revolutionary Tunisia, a holistic approach to transitional justice – which aims to address a wide range of justice issues through a combination of measures – may lead to an expansion of mandates and consequently, to the overloading of transitional justice institutions. It therefore identifies a ‘problem-capacity-nexus’: While the expansive approach appears well-suited to relevant problems and the capacities of transitional justice professionals, it does not necessarily fit with the capacities of domestic institutions. Thus, transitional justice, while making efforts to address a broad range of relevant problems, has yet to find suitable avenues for actually doing so.
Highlights
Current debates in transitional justice (TJ) research and practice often seek to answer two salient questions: what constitutes TJ processes’ ideal scope and what TJ measures are imperative for a society to address a legacy of violence and repression
I draw on field research insights to show the process’s ambitious mandate as corresponding well to both the field’s trending towards holistic approaches and Tunisia’s domestic issues of justice but much less so to what TJ institutions were able to deliver. This empirical work exposes a ‘problem-capacity’ dilemma: While holistic approaches are normatively desirable to address a wide range of justice problems, and may very well align with the capacities of the TJ professionals involved in their administering, they may not befit, capacities of domestic (TJ) institutions, to the extent they inculcate impression of their goals as unachievable
I introduced the notion of a skewed problem-capacity-nexus evolving from a holistic approach to TJ, whereby, in Tunisia, the problems addressed and the measures chosen as part of such an approach fit the Tunisian context as well as the repertoire of TJ professionals, but not necessarily the capacities of the institutions in the transitional state
Summary
I draw on field research insights to show the process’s ambitious mandate as corresponding well to both the field’s trending towards holistic approaches and Tunisia’s domestic issues of justice but much less so to what TJ institutions were able to deliver This empirical work exposes a ‘problem-capacity’ dilemma: While holistic approaches are normatively desirable to address a wide range of justice problems, and may very well align with the capacities of the TJ professionals involved in their administering, they may not befit, capacities of domestic (TJ) institutions, to the extent they inculcate impression of their goals as unachievable. To this end, I first illustrate how different actors contributed to an idealized mandate and the skewed problem-capacity-nexus. I would contend that there is not so much a lack of theory that informs TJ, but rather an insular understanding that misses theoretical (and practical) connections to questions of political change and state capacities in other areas
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