Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Thesis Format

Monograph

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Political Science

Collaborative Specialization

Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction

Supervisor

Quinn, Joanna R.

Abstract

Used by states to investigate patterns of past human rights abuses, truth commissions have garnered considerable consensus for their value in addressing past harms and repression. Many still tout the South African model as a success story of truth commissions. This dissertation provides answers to two questions. First, what role, if any, did earlier investigative institutions play in shaping South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)? The dissertation argues that the Commission of Inquiry for the Prevention of Public Violence and Intimidation, also known as the Goldstone Commission, played a central role in transforming information- gathering measures in South Africa. Second, what were the contributing institutional developments of the Goldstone Commission, and how do we characterize these contributions? The dissertation argues that the Goldstone Commission’s founding conditions, its institutional design, and its impartial investigations, created the conditions for the process of gradual institutional change in the Goldstone Commission as a commission of inquiry. The Commission’s credibility helped to strengthen information gathering during the negotiating period in South Africa and facilitated further change in information-gathering capacities, including the incorporation of witness protection. The dissertation also traces gradual institutional change in the use of amnesty to situate its eventual implementation as an information-gathering mechanism by the TRC. The South African TRC benefited from the operation of the Goldstone Commission in terms of investigative credibility and institutional experience. This dissertation makes the case that to better understand truth commission design and operation it is necessary to take institutional histories into account.

Summary for Lay Audience

This dissertation offers an answer to the question: What role, if any, did earlier investigative institutions play in shaping South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)? I argue that the South African TRC was shaped, in part, by an investigative institution, the Commission of Inquiry for the Prevention of Public Violence and Intimidation (also known as the Goldstone Commission), that preceded it. I demonstrate the impact of the Goldstone Commission, examining its contributing institutional developments, and how we characterize these contributions.

Three components of information gathering are studied in detail to explore how the Goldstone Commission helped to undo legacies of repression and, through its operation, laid a strong foundation for the operation of the TRC. These three institutions are the commission of inquiry, witness protection, and amnesty. Each of these institutions had a history of unjust use under the Apartheid regime.

The dissertation argues that the Goldstone Commission’s founding conditions, its institutional design, and its impartial investigations, created the conditions for the process of gradual institutional change, in the Goldstone Commission as a commission of inquiry. The Commission’s credibility helped to strengthen information gathering during the negotiating period in South Africa and facilitated further change in information-gathering capacities, including the incorporation of witness protection. The dissertation also traces gradual institutional change in the use of amnesty to situate its eventual implementation as an information-gathering mechanism by the TRC.

This dissertation makes the case that to understand truth commission design and operation, it is necessary to take institutional histories into account. Although truth commissions are established to address past harms and injustice, they may rely on institutions that were implicated in past abuse. Using the case of South Africa, this project offers insight into how existing institutions can be adjusted or re-tooled in order to serve ends of truth-seeking. This is significant not only for countries establishing truth commissions after periods of conflict and authoritarian repression but also for countries engaging with questions of justice and redress in established democracies.

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