When Do Reinstated Democracies Hold the Military Accountable? Truth Commissions and Military Trials in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

This paper explains under what conditions prosecutions of military officers who committed human rights violations (HRVs) happen in countries that transitioned to democracy from military rule. It proposes an analytical model and then tests it through case studies and process-tracing the adoption of transitional justice mechanisms in Argentina, Chile, and Brazil. It argues that the issue of holding accountable past violations is a credible commitment problem. Credible commitment is possible when the parts have an incentive to abide by the bargain after it is made. For institutions to be credible, they have to be self-enforcing (North and Weingast 1989). During transition to democracy, the military established institutions that were designed to protect their interests, among them amnesty laws. In the absence of shifts in the power relation between civilians and the military, such institutional shields would stick, thus being self-enforcing. However, the balance of power can tip to the civilian side the more democratizers succeed in removing military prerogatives left during the transition, expose past deeds through truth commissions and advance measures of civilian control of the military. These actions change the balance of power in a way that allows civilians to renege on past promises like amnesties. The framework proposed in this paper better accounts for the variation found in prosecutions of officers who committed HRVs in countries that transitioned from military rule, and more specifically, it provides a novel answer of why Brazil is a comparatively laggard.