What's in an Idea?: Truth Commission Policy Transfer in Ghana and Canada

Abstract

This article employs a social constructivist framework to explain truth commission policy transfer across borders. Using the cases of Ghana and Canada, the article draws on qualitative interview research to trace how and why the truth commission model was adopted by these two countries in response to past human rights abuse. In contrast to suggestions that the transnational proliferation of truth commissions is the result of behavioral socialization emanating from “one-size-fits-all” international regulative structures, we argue that the idea of a truth commission is adopted and adapted by domestic agents, with the assistance of international actors, in the face of domestic constraints that bar the path to alternative transitional justice policy choices. Our findings show that actors both act upon and act within existing structures, and ideas play a significant, constitutive role in helping to shape peoples’ shared beliefs about the best way to address an abusive past. The article includes methodological explanation of what we can learn from nonparadigmatic transitions such as Ghana's and Canada's, and it concludes with a brief discussion of the role of international transitional justice actors.