The USIP Learning Agenda: An Evidence Review

Support Structures for Sustained Reconciliation

Carl Stauffer

Senior Expert on Reconciliation, United States Institute of Peace

APRIL 2023

This award is for you mothers in the KTC squatter camp, whose shelters are destroyed callously every day and who sit on soaking mattresses in the winter rain, holding whimpering babies.… This award is for you fathers, sitting in [informal settlement] hostels, separated from your children for eleven months a year.… This award is for you, the 3.5 million of our people who have been uprooted and dumped as if you were rubbish. This award is for you.¹

Introduction

Desmond Tutu’s life and legacy have been described as formative in achieving solidarity in South Africa. As an icon of reconciliation, Tutu emphasized social cohesion and helped to establish universal suffrage for all South Africans, a government of national unity under Nelson Mandela’s leadership, and a national Truth and Reconciliation Commission.² An internationally acclaimed anti-apartheid proponent, Tutu understood that peace would not be durable without intentional support structures to sustain reconciliation.

Tutu’s death on December 26, 2021, caused many in the peace field to pause and reflect on what scaffolding needs to be in place for reconciliation to be just and sustainable. This reflection has cogence not only for conflict settings around the world, but also for the United States amid ongoing civil unrest and escalating polarization. Reconciliation is not something that activists, state actors, or conflicting communities can ignore; it is central to transitional justice, stabilization, reconstruction, and, as this paper argues, violence prevention.

Commissioned by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), this evidence review addresses three questions to help identify what support structures are necessary for reconciliation:

1.  What are key reconciliation drivers?

2.  What are primary reconciliation processes and skill sets?

3.  What institutional support needs to be in place for reconciliation to be sustained?

To understand what drives reconciliation, 30 practitioners were surveyed to ascertain the changes needed to break stalemates and facilitate reconciliation. The practitioners’ theories of change (TOCs) were then calibrated according to various types and levels of intervention. Next, in-depth interviews were conducted with six internationally recognized reconciliation experts. These interviews, in addition to the practitioner surveys, surfaced information about recommended reconciliation processes and skill sets. Lastly, a document analysis and expert interviews were conducted to synthesize data around the institutional support necessary to enhance the durability of reconciliation.

The evidence review findings suggest a four-pronged approach to building sustainable reconciliation: individual and collective healing (acknowledgment, truth-telling, psychosocial support, and trauma recovery); intercommunal dialogue and peaceful relations (protocols for empathic encounter and shared problem-solving); capacity-building platforms (peace education, skills, and civic capital formation); and inclusive governance and institutional reform (structural change to increase social justice delivery). The final product of this review is a reconciliation matrix that integrates the findings from these four areas (see table 4).

In Search of Reconciliation: Definitions and Models

Reconciliation is a societal process that involves mutual acknowledgment of past suffering and the changing of destructive attitudes and behavior into constructive relationships toward sustainable peace.³

The field of reconciliation has often been characterized by thin generalizations and anecdotal references to inspiring stories of rapprochement across enemy divides. In the marketplace of ideas, the language of reconciliation has become quite popularized and at the same time diluted. For some, reconciliation involves the establishment of a political process of power sharing as represented by an interim government of unity. For others, it involves the institution of a new political and legal dispensation governed by the rule of law and democratic reforms that manage how former enemies are to live together; during war-to-peace transitions, the term reconciliation can easily be hijacked to serve the interests of specific sociopolitical groups. Still, for others, reconciliation involves the building of good working relationships on the job or in the community, with persons of another culture or race. While these elements contribute to reconciliation, they are only parts of the whole.

Sustainable reconciliation requires progression beyond mere social tolerance, political coexistence, and/or structural reforms alone. Durable reconciliation requires the construction of sociopolitical cohesion (harmony, resonance) in the life of an individual, family, community, and/or nation. Cohesion involves the restoring of meaningful relationships (of dignity, trust, and collaboration). Cohesion also infers at least two other aspects: a collective concern for the common good (corporate well-being and equity) and a view of a shared future that offers hope and motivation for unity.

Six models found in the literature are salient frameworks for conceptualizing reconciliation. Each offers a unique angle on the positional, spectral, spiritual, psychological, collective, and political aspects of reconciliation.

The first model focuses on the positional elements of reconciliation by unpacking the different levels at which reconciliation can operate. Lina Strupinskiene reviewed and summarized the 70 most quoted authors in the field of transitional justice to map the landscape of conceptions of reconciliation.⁴ Some important distinctions include differentiating between vertical reconciliation (between the state and its citizens) and horizontal reconciliation (between individuals, communities, and societies), as well as between “thin” reconciliation (coexistence with little trust, respect, or shared values) and “thick” reconciliation (acknowledgment of dignity, reversing of structural marginalization and discrimination, and restoring of the rights and belonging of victim-survivors).⁵

Figure 1.  Minimalist to Maximalist Approaches to Reconciliation

Source: Adapted from Verdeja, Unchopping a Tree, 12–14, 18–20.

The second model conceives of reconciliation on a spectrum that ranges from minimalist to maximalist (see figure 1). The minimalist approach, sometimes referred to as the “moving on” approach, focuses on violence cessation, rule of law, political community, and instrumental political outcomes. Situated between the minimalist and maximalist understandings, a deliberative or “reform” approach to reconciliation prioritizes rights, institutional reform, justice and accountability, reparation, and new norms and narratives. On the other end of the spectrum, a maximalist approach focuses on transformation and emphasizes social renewal, healing, repentance and forgiveness, restorative justice, and moral repair.⁶

The third model conceptualizes reconciliation as a passage that entails initial separation and then a turning point followed by various encounters with self, God/Divine and others, reparations, and finally human recognition of the “enemy” other.⁷ John Paul Lederach refers to reconciliation as a spiritual journey. Tutu is credited with enshrining many acts of civil disobedience against the apartheid government, as well as his critiques of liberationist excesses, under the banner of this imagery of moral imagination.

The fourth model highlights the psychological elements of reconciliation. Hugo van der Merwe describes reconciliation through the analogy of an iceberg (see figure 2).⁸ At the top of the triangle, he places the visible “patterns of interaction,” which involve the type and extent of communication, exposure to others’ way of life, and social and workplace interaction. Below that level are the “attitudes toward the adversary,” which involve issues of trust, understanding, myths, prejudices, and stereotypes. At yet another deeper level, there are the “values regarding interaction,” which involve human rights culture, tolerance, relationship, and cooperation. Finally, at the foundation level is “identity,” which involves the overarching (possibly common or divergent) values, philosophies, religious beliefs, and ideologies that govern life. All of these levels impact and intersect with each other in the process of reconciliation.

Figure 2.  Iceberg Model

The key point behind this model is that the most visible levels of the iceberg are probably the easiest to address, while the hidden terrains present a much greater challenge.

A fifth model focuses on the collective dimensions of reconciliation. Ron Kraybill outlines a cyclical model of reconciliation that starts with relational injury, followed by withdrawal, the reclaiming of identity, internal commitment to reconcile, restoration of risk, negotiation to meet present needs, and back into relationship.⁹ From her work with refugees during the Balkans war, Olga Botcharova developed the following cycle of reconciliation seen in figure 3.¹⁰

Lastly, the sixth model zeroes in on reconciliation as political instrumentation. A global peacebuilding organization, International Alert, conceptualizes reconciliation at a national level. Its four-step approach consists of acknowledgment, restitution, political and economic reconstruction, and a rebuilding of just relations.¹¹ National and international tribunals and truth commissions have frequently used this approach in the adjudication of war crimes and gross human rights violations. The approach can also involve hybridized indigenous processes that have a national reach, such as Rwanda’s Gacaca Courts process or Sierra Leone’s Fambul Tok process.¹²

In summary, this brief overview of reconciliation highlights that there is no one-step formula to reconciliation. Rather, reconciliation draws from multiple disciplines, including the fields of trauma and resilience, restorative justice, alternative dispute resolution, conflict transformation, group dynamics, conflict systems mapping, community building, social cohesion processes, futures thinking, and social movement theory. From these fields, one can get a glimpse of the end goal of reconciliation—a vision of what harmonized, just, and cohesive relations could look and feel like. This evidence review discusses the necessary support structures (the means) to move toward this horizon of reconciliation.

Figure 3.  Collective Cycle of Reconciliation

Source: Botcharova, “Implementation of Track Two Diplomacy—Developing a Model of Forgiveness.”

Overview of Methodology

This evidence review was designed to (1) identify salient reconciliation drivers (theories of change), (2) highlight primary reconciliation processes and skill sets, and (3) distill findings around necessary institutional support. The paper’s summative product is a reconciliation matrix that synthesizes findings from these areas and can be used to guide policymakers, practitioners, and funders as they design, plan, monitor, and evaluate reconciliation initiatives.

The following mixed-method approach was used to gather evidence:

•  Document analysis (qualitative). Two literature reviews were conducted: a meta-analysis of reconciliation writ large and of reconciliation TOCs more specifically. Published and unpublished sources, including comparative case studies, were examined. As part of this evidence review, Simon Keyes reviewed TOC dilemmas in the field.¹³ Second, Nicholas Sherwood and colleagues surveyed sources—including key books and monographs, academic journal articles, and other gray literature—and analyzed 21 TOCs used within reconciliation programs and processes.¹⁴ These TOCs originated from sixteen countries, including from Africa (ten), the Balkans (three), Southeast Asia (one), South Asia (one), and the Middle East (one). For comparison, the researchers reviewed nineteen reconciliation evaluations that explicitly included TOCs in their programmatic reports and nine reconciliation evaluations that did not mention TOCs. Limitations on the literature reviews included lack of access to some unpublished reports and possible researcher bias in qualitative cross-sample comparisons.

•  Practitioner surveys (quantitative).¹⁵ To complement the document analysis, a survey instrument was developed and used to solicit input from field staff and practitioners. Respondents represented all levels of program staff from networks both internal and external to USIP. A total of 30 (n=30) survey responses were collected.¹⁶ Of all the respondents, over half had worked in the reconciliation field for 12 years or longer, and 32 percent identified as female, and 68 percent identified as male. The participants hailed from 17 countries. They were engaged in fieldwork and research in 13 countries. The survey included both quantitative (Likert scale) questions as well as qualitative (open response) questions. Practitioner responses were synthesized and documented in a summary report by Sherwood and colleagues.¹⁷

•  Semistructured interviews (qualitative). Six transcribed interviews were conducted with leading reconciliation experts who had generated reconciliation scholarship from multiple global contexts. These experts had practical experience from working in West, Central, and Southern Africa; South Korea and Northeast Asia; and North America. The selection criteria for these interviewees included seminal contributions to literature in the field and/or a minimum of two to three decades of reconciliation practice leadership roles. In-depth interview questions were used. Interviewees addressed existing approaches (and gaps) to building reconciliation support structures. Interview responses were synthesized and documented by Angelina Mendes in May 2022.¹⁸

Reconciliation Drivers

The first shift in perspective must be that people are not the problem. The problem is the fear, the separation, the isolation, the apathy, the inequitable distribution of rights and resources, and so on. If people are able to learn to accept that these are the issues and the issue is not other people or groups—and that each group navigates, negotiates, and interacts with the same existing issues from different perspectives—then it may be possible for each to better understand how each group’s actions and contributions are creating the society that they live [coexist] in. And if they are able to address some of those problems, then they can find a way forward, they can create new narratives moving forward, and understand that it doesn’t require that certain people or groups be eliminated or displaced or excluded, etc., to live with peace.¹⁹

Change drivers are defined as factors that create movement or shifts in an operational field. Change drivers can be implicit or explicit and can operate alone or simultaneously at multiple levels within a social system. In the reconciliation field, the goal is to bring conflicting parties closer to a peaceable future that precludes violence and instead builds social cohesion. In aiming to uncover factors that contribute to these conditions of “just-peace,”²⁰ this evidence review surfaced four primary reconciliation drivers. Each driver is accompanied by a TOC that unpacks how reconciliation operates under these conditions. Table 1 lists the drivers (including the accompanying social theories and levels at which they operate) and the TOCs named most frequently by the survey respondents.

The document analysis, surveys, and interviews completed for this evidence review revealed three important additional themes and caveats related to reconciliation drivers. These include valuable observations or qualifications on TOC dynamics, what constitutes a trauma-informed reconciliation approach, and what individual and collective “healing” entails.

The literature review conducted by Keyes highlights the importance of taking a deep dive into the phenomena of TOCs.²¹ TOCs can refer to an array of processes, including those that create new social norms, increase social capital, and enact a shift in perspectives and/or cultural worldviews. Franklin Lartey categorizes TOCs according to chaos, complexity, and contingency theories.²² These categories are relevant because they enumerate how specific conditions of change can make reconciliation more, or less, durable.

•  Chaos theory explores, among many things, how seemingly small interjections into complex systems may cause unpredictable and significant shifts in the ways the system behaves or transforms. Key characteristics of chaos theory are nonlinearity, feedback loops, and recursive causality (the idea that unpredictable changes can have a major impact on outcomes). This TOC dynamic is important because it acknowledges the presence of wild cards in reconciliation efforts. An elevated wild card quotient can significantly risk the potential for sustainable change unless reconciliation drivers are simultaneously accompanied by high levels of mutual trust. According to interview respondents, building trust through the alleviation of trauma and investment in social repair is key to the durability of reconciliation:

Support structures … are crucial for reconciliation to be sustainable. For example, community farms, women’s groups, sports such as football, peace trees, etc., help to mitigate potential new conflict and also heal divides. Follow-up structures (such as the groups and committees that continue to provide ongoing support after the Fambul Tok truth-telling ritual) are crucial and help to bridge the gap and encourage longer-term trust-building and safe spaces where groups and individuals can come together. For example, in the Fambul Tok process, these follow-up structures played a key role in helping to sustain reconciliation and maintain interpersonal and communal cohesion and harmony.²³

Table 1.  Conditions That Enable Reconciliation

Reconciliation drivers

Accompanying theory of change (TOC)

Driver #1: Investment in individual and collective healing

(trauma recovery, mental health, psychosocial support)

Level: Interpersonal and intragroup

TOC #1: IF trauma healing and recovery is understood, accessible, and accepted by most of the affected population, THEN, reconciliation is more likely to be sustained, BECAUSE people’s well-being is enhanced; their dignity, recognition, and empathy have increased; and they are less likely to be triggered by past violence or harm.

Driver #2: Cocreation of intercommunal dialogues and peaceful relations protocols

(contact theory, healthy relationship theory)

Level: Horizontal reconciliation (between communities)

TOC #2: IF plausible narratives of interdependence and a shared future view are embraced by a critical mass of people, and IF people engage in inclusive and sustained dialogues that contribute to shared decision-making and power, THEN, reconciliation agreements are stronger, BECAUSE there is increased tolerance, understanding, patience, and motivation for diverse groups to coexist in harmony.

Driver #3: Development of capacity-building platforms for education, skills, and civic capital formation

(capacity building)

Level: Horizontal and vertical reconciliation (within, across, and between communities, civil society, and government)

TOC #3: IF peacebuilding actors (individuals, groups, organizations, and communities) are engaged in capacity building to facilitate conflict resolution and violence transformation, and IF these multiple entities are networked for collaboration, THEN, reconciliation is more plausible, BECAUSE groups within civil society are more likely to have investment and ownership in the process of jointly building reconciliation for the future.

Driver #4: Advocacy of inclusive governance and institutional reform

(inclusion)

Level: Vertical reconciliation (between citizens and government)

TOC #4: IF unjust public policies, corrupt power structures, and repressive governance institutions are reformed and transformed, and IF government and communal leadership engages the civilian population in deliberative democracy and public participation processes, THEN, durable reconciliation is more likely to be secured, BECAUSE people have increased confidence in representative governing structures and in the social contracts that undergird reconciliation.

•  Complexity theory presumes that complex problems—or “wicked problems” or what are also called intractable conflicts—cannot necessarily be resolved.²⁴ Rather, complex conflicts can be observed, and experimental interventions can be applied to them. The learning in complex theory is not predictive but is instead emergent: the outputs and the best actions to achieve them most readily surface as the work is being done. Here, the adage “We make our path by walking it” applies. This approach places affected individuals—or “insider mediators/reconcilers”—in the center of reconciliation processes, as they are living the experience of conflict daily.²⁵ Respondents suggested that high-level reconciliation interventions that ignore participation by affected parties do so at their own risk. Rather, sustainable reconciliation should directly engage survivors and harm doers (individuals and structures) in deliberative processes:

Leaders must be inclusive. Often, peace processes/dialogues/negotiations primarily include those who were directly involved in the fighting; they are the ones who get to negotiate peace. This excludes those who are often most impacted by the violence, including youth, women, children, and others who survived the violence, all of whom will have very different stories and perspectives on reconciliation and a vision for a shared future.²⁶

•  Contingency theory promotes the notion that there are multiple avenues by which to arrive at the same results. This contextualization theory suggests that outcomes are based on factors such as the environment, technology, and the quality of social infrastructure available for use in change processes. Two important characteristics of contingency theory are adaptation (elements of the system will react to each other) and congruence (outcomes depend on the coherence of relationships between different elements of the system, including leadership). These TOC dynamics have important implications for reconciliation insofar as they acknowledge the important role of leaders and institutional infrastructure in supporting (or sabotaging) reconciliation efforts. Respondents suggested that reconciliation processes tend to be more sustainable when they are operationalized through multitrack interventions:

National processes should be designed with supporting structures/processes that feed into them from the community level and vice versa.… Externally driven processes where the externals are treated as the experts are very removed from the values and realities of local people.… When the existing structures and systems have not been improved and structural problems persist, just helping people be in good relationships, with the problems still existing in society, won’t create long-term sustainable outcomes.²⁷

In addition to TOC dynamics, another theme that arose in both the literature and the respondent narratives was collective trauma recovery and resilience. In the aftermath of violence, reconciliation is frequently conceptualized as the individual and/or collective journey from violence to social repair. The field of neuroscience has contributed to a greater understanding of how violence impacts the lives of individual people and how it can additionally effect processes of reconciliation. Human minds and bodies capture and store the full sensory experience of harm when it occurs.

In her seminal work on trauma recovery, Judith Herman found that the roots of trauma cause profound disempowerment and disconnection.²⁸ Both effects are dehumanizing in nature. They perpetuate violations of dignity, shame, and emotional shocks that cause unwanted intrusive thinking (flashbacks), hyperarousal (aggressive behaviors), and/or disengagement (withdrawal and depressive behaviors).²⁹ Respondents indicated that reconciliation processes that do not take these responses into account are less likely to succeed or be sustained:

Leadership must be trauma-informed. Leaders must be aware of the impacts of trauma in the context in which they are active, and they must also have a sense of justice so that they can facilitate conversations with this kind of awareness and understanding. They must be aware of their own wounds and how that impacts their actions and ability to be good leaders.³⁰

A third theme that emerged during the interviews focused on how the durability of reconciliation is enhanced when it meets the fundamental human needs of those most affected by the violence.³¹ Howard Zehr’s research indicates that, to heal, survivors of violence need safety, answers, truth-telling, vindication (satisfaction), and responsive institutions.³² For survivors of harm, durable healing requires learning new coping mechanisms, building physical and emotional resilience, and nurturing positive psychological change or post-traumatic growth.³³ Likewise, perpetrators of violence need encouraging spaces to experience accountability and to take responsibility for the harms committed:³⁴ they need opportunities to focus on transforming shame (not perpetuating its permanence); spaces that encourage empathy, respect, and a healthy self-image;³⁵ and rituals for redemption, restoration, and reintegration into the family and community.³⁶

Trauma-informed approaches range from collective somatic work (whole body exercises) and group therapy to community-based models of accountability and indigenous healing circles.³⁷ Such approaches can provide psychosocial support, avenues for personal and public truth-telling and lament,³⁸ the awakening of empathic responses,³⁹ and opportunities for interpersonal and collective forgiveness transactions.

Evil acts create chains that lock perpetrators and victims together, usually in unconscious ways, producing a double history of effects which must be taken into account in reflecting on the nature of forgiveness. An act of forgiveness must be understood as a complex process of unlocking painful bondage, of mutual liberation. While the perpetrators must be set free from their guilt (and its devastating consequences), the victims must be liberated from their hurt (and its destructive implications).⁴⁰

Findings suggest that such rituals (as described above) can embed reconciliation in culturally relevant formats that ensure that healing and social repair are durable and holistic.

Behaviors can be culture and context specific. For instance, in some cultures when individuals are harmed, the whole family is harmed/bears the burden. And not just an individual—groups may have expectations of how perpetrators must behave during community truth-telling processes (such as showing remorse, etc.).⁴¹

Reconciliation Processes and Skill Sets

Processes should be designed with different approaches to grassroots leadership that consider representation, diversity, and inclusion. For example, women may feel more comfortable speaking to a fellow woman, especially in the case of gendered violence; or a religious leader may be more effective for a particular religious group; or youth may be more likely to speak with a youth leader and so on. In this way, support processes built around different types of leaders/representatives can ensure that the needs and voices of everyone [are] taken into the design of the process. Both victims and offenders must feel safe and comfortable in coming forward to share their stories, and, therefore, the choice of leadership can influence who participates and who chooses not to.⁴²

Effective reconciliation hinges on the deployment of processes and skill sets that transform inter- and intragroup conflict or violence into prosocial relations. Findings from this evidence review’s document analysis suggest that this deployment frequently occurs through (1) social capital formation and enhancement strategies (networking and constructive victim/perpetrator encounters);⁴³ and (2) dialogic processes that address underlying needs related to identity,⁴⁴ equity,⁴⁵ and the prosocial restructuring of norms.⁴⁶

Building peaceful inter- and intragroup relations involves using all the forms of capital available to the change system. Cornelia Flora and Jan Flora identify three kinds of social capital: bonding (intragroup), bridging (intergroup), and linking (social network).⁴⁷ Valdis Krebs and June Holley suggest that “weaving networks” of these various forms of capital builds critical mass for social change.⁴⁸ Mapping forms of capital, connecting them, and coordinating their combined action are essential reconciliation tasks.⁴⁹

Once constructive social networks are in place, dialogue processes create the currency for forward movement. Dialogue experts Ronald Fisher, Margarita Tadevosyan, and Esra Cuhadar suggest three major types: pure dialogue, problem-solving dialogue, and agnostic dialogue.⁵⁰

•  Pure dialogue (local and communal groups) refers to a discussion to exchange viewpoints and attitudes on group disagreements. Pure dialogue serves to clarify issues; increase understanding; and nurture respect, empathy, and trust.

•  Problem-solving dialogue (civil society and government groups) is applied in situations of polarization and segregation. It is meant to confront specific issues, create options, and change the course of outcomes. Its goal is mutual conflict analysis and joint problem-solving.

•  Agnostic dialogue (civil society and national and international groups) is required to avoid mutual destruction. It explores radical disagreements and confronts inequity and injustice. Its goal is the analysis and revision of historical perspectives in order to achieve structural change.

The durability of reconciliation is enhanced when multiple (interlocking) forms of capital are deployed at various levels of dialogic engagement.⁵¹ This makes for a whole-system approach that entrenches reconciliation processes throughout the entire social web.

During this evidence review, the interviewees and survey respondents also identified specific reconciliation processes and skill sets related to the four drivers. Data from the literature view, interviews, and surveys are synthesized in table 2.⁵²

Table 2.  Reconciliation Processes and Skill Sets

Drivers

Processes

Skill sets

1. Investment in individual and collective healing

In identifying, naming, and grieving their losses, the wronged and the wrongdoer need a safe space to tell their story and a public space where society “bears witness” to the harm caused.⁵³

• Gathering victim statements⁵⁴

• Truth-telling and public hearings⁵⁵

• Memorialization rituals⁵⁶

• Psychosocial support services⁵⁷

• Trauma recovery processes⁵⁸

• Listening; nonviolent communication

• Public facilitation competency

• Cultural and arts-based approaches

• Basic counseling skills

• Trauma, resilience, coping strategies

Qualitative Expansions on Driver #1: Respondent Interview

Trust and [healing] support structures are very important to begin communal reconciliation processes, especially where there are ongoing cycles of violence and [when] groups within the community have been both perpetrators and victims at different times. The members of the community need to establish trust with those who are facilitating the process, and they also need to trust the process. Often, in very sensitive and heightened contexts or with deep-rooted violence, this requires meeting with different groups separately to help them to heal, build awareness, and learn about others before conflicting groups are placed in the same setting together.

2. Cocreation of intercommunal dialogues and peaceful relations protocols⁵⁹

Recent brain research on empathy and attachment theory indicates that the human brain is biologically “hardwired” to make human connections and to build community through social networks.

• Joint decision-making protocols⁶⁰

• Power sharing and equity inventories⁶¹

• Sustained dialogue processes⁶²

• Conflict systems mapping⁶³

• Appreciative inquiry⁶⁴

• Group facilitation

• Problem-solving and mediation skills

• Capacity in principled negotiation

• System analysis skills

• Strengths-based approaches

Qualitative Expansions on Driver #2: Respondent Interview

For any process to be sustainable, the people who are most affected by the conflict or by the injustice or by the situation need to play a major role. If they’re not able to play a role in the design of the process, they should play a major role in participating in discussion of the issues at the table. And provisions should be made for them to participate even if they don’t speak the language. It is crucial to have fair representation and inclusion if reconciliation processes are to be sustainable.

3. Development of platforms for capacity building in education, skills, and civic capital formation

Learning how to “remember rightly in a violent world” entails dealing with national-patriotic narratives, historical memories, lived experience, and current events without perpetrating more violence.⁶⁵

• Restorative justice (RJ) processes⁶⁶

• Family group conferencing⁶⁷

• Circle processes⁶⁸

• Reparations for historical harms⁶⁹

• Transformative scenario planning⁷⁰

• Knowledge of RJ process and practice

• Conflict facilitation skills

• Circle keeping and empathic response

• Knowledge of violence cycle and repair

• De-escalation and scenario building

Qualitative Expansions on Driver #3: Respondent Interview

Capacity building is essential in ensuring the sustainability of reconciliation. People need to undo or unlearn what they learned when the violence was [sic] ongoing. People need to develop new mindsets and narratives as they move toward reconciliation or as they are in the process of reconciliation. There must be some kind of paradigm shift for reconciliation to be sustainable.

4. Advocacy of inclusive governance and institutional reform

Placed alongside continued inequality and discrimination, truth-telling appears of little value. Reconciliation decoupled from some form of social justice and transformation loses its meaning.

• Nonviolent strategic action⁷¹

• Lobby and advocacy campaigns⁷²

• Policy and legislative change⁷³

• Public participation⁷⁴

• Deliberative democracy processes⁷⁵

• Community organizing skills

• Access to infrastructural supports

• Knowledge of political process

• Trust building and social capital equity

• Advocacy and consensus-building skills

Qualitative Expansions on Driver #4: Respondent Interview

Reconciliation occurs in sociopolitical spaces, and while it is about relationships, relationships are formed and repaired in particular sociopolitical environments. The environment itself is a kind of sociopolitical container in this sense. There must be some notion of equity in relationships for reconciliation to be durable. When there is marginalization based on identity, religion, economic status, and so on, reconciliation will not be sustainable. Reconciliation must reach into … local governance processes—and this is when it can become more durable: equal access, inclusion, access to participation in communal and civic processes, decision-making processes, [and] nonhierarchy between groups at communal and institutional levels.

Keyes’s seminal work in the reconciliation field helps to illustrate the various previously mentioned reconciliation processes and skill sets. Keyes provides 10 short case studies as exemplars of a broad spectrum of reconciliation interventions (for details on the studies, see his work in “Mapping Reconciliation”):⁷⁶

1.  Fambul Tok, Sierra Leone (community-led reconciliation)

2.  Palava, Peace Hut Alliance, Liberia (restorative justice)

3.  Greensboro Truth Commission, North Carolina, US (truth-telling)

4.  Healing Through Remembering, Northern Ireland (storytelling)

5.  Inter-Religious Co-ordinating Council, Israel (dialogue as peacebuilding)

6.  Fundacion para la Reconciliacion, Colombia (schools of forgiveness and reconciliation)

7.  Uuk*aana, Canada (reconciliation as resurgence)

8.  Circulos Restaurativos, Brazil (learning from restorative circles)

9.  Spirit of Sangwe Festival, Burundi (music challenging stereotypes)

10. Kvinna till Kvinna, Bosnia (psychosocial support after gender-based violence)

While having competency in reconciliation processes and skill sets is essential for implementation, sustainability hinges on the institutional support that enables reconciliation processes to continue long term.

Reconciliation Institutional Support

Laws, policies, institutions, and practices that led to conflict and division in the first place must be addressed and adapted in order for reconciliation to become sustainable. For example, policies that enforce segregated communities, housing, education, etc., cannot continue. Or in the case of natural resource exploitation or illegal exploitation, which may be the root cause of conflict, these must be addressed; otherwise, it will continue to impact efforts toward reconciliation. Structural issues that are beyond community power and control and that must be addressed at policy or government levels are crucial to sustain reconciliation.⁷⁷

A key competency for sustained reconciliation is system mapping. This entails making an inventory of all the resources available to the change process. In terms of institutional and communal support, this evidence review identified four forms of capital necessary for sustainable reconciliation: moral, social, civic, and governance. Each form of capital provides critical institutional support (see table 3).⁷⁸

Table 3.  Institutional Support for Reconciliation

Drivers

Institutional resource

Driver #1: Investment in individual and collective healing

Moral capital

Institutional support:

1. Ethical champions—support credible advocates and change agents

2. Acknowledgment—be accountable, bear witness, acknowledge system complicity

3. Active transparency—ensure reconciliation process is known and accessible at all levels

Respondent expansions:

It is also crucial to identify credible stakeholders who can serve as the moral guarantors in support structures.… Self-reflection, honesty, transparency, accountability, and self-awareness are important for facilitators of reconciliation, as people will hold them to higher standards and will observe their behaviors and actions at all times. It is important that leaders are individuals with some moral standing in society—individuals who enjoy the confidence of the public. This is key, especially for formal processes. If the leadership is seen as politically biased toward one side, this will impact the process and can hinder truth-telling processes because those on the other side will not feel comfortable to come before or share their own stories. At the communal level, leaders/committee members in the community are the moral guarantors of the process who will ensure the safety and security of people and the process. They must be trusted and respected individuals.

Complexities and opportunities:

1. Ethical champions, depending on their modus operandi, can sometimes escalate tensions because of their moral tenor. It is therefore important to couple this support element with nonviolent communication skills.

2. Institutional acknowledgment is fraught with the complexity of tort law and legal liability claims. Repair strategies should center tangible redress for historic (and current) harms.

3. Process and data transparency should include access for the nonliterate, transient populations, people with disabilities, children, and high-risk groups in order to address barriers.

Examples and applications:

• South Africa—While Archbishop Tutu represented a well-known national ethical champion in South Africa, there were many other unknown moral guarantors who also contributed to keeping reconciliation alive at the provincial and local levels.⁷⁹

• Australia—The government officially apologized for its historical and current treatment of the Aboriginal peoples. It also employed a set of data criteria to measure the quality of life of Aboriginal communities with accompanying legislation that requires the Australian Parliament to review these well-being development markers each year to assess their progress in meeting these goals.⁸⁰

• Sierra Leone—The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report was illustrated in comic book form to make the commission’s findings more accessible for teaching school-age children about the civil war.⁸¹

Driver #2:

Cocreation of intercommunal dialogues and peaceful relations protocols

Social capital

Institutional support:

1. Due process—ensure institutional commitment to the protection of all parties

2. Rules of engagement—instill safe protocols for communication, interaction, and breaches

3. Peace DNA—surface the peace practices already present in groups

Respondent expansions:

In the case of Burundi, peace committees have been able to mobilize young people toward the vision of peace and toward living in diversity for communities and the country to embrace the diversity and move toward a more peaceful society. This type of education and sensitization was integrated into the communities and into the hearts of the people and the mindset of the people. The peace committees brought about transformation in different communities and different villages. Put together at the national level, they created a kind of social movement against youth joining armed groups, or military or paramilitary groups, to support the government or the rebel group formation. The peace committees therefore have a positive impact on youth.

Complexities and opportunities:

1. In some instances, the protection of harmed individuals/groups and the interests of institutions/states are oppositional. For reconciliation to occur, consideration must be given to addressing structural power asymmetries as part of protection and due process protocols.

2. Nonviolent engagement protocols are key to the cessation of harm. Civic entities can play central mediatory roles if they are reflexive regarding their own trauma and positionality.

3. Embedded in all social/cultural contexts are rituals of harm acknowledgment and repair. Sourcing these assets is an important institutional support strategy.

Examples and applications:

• Colombia—After a historic peace agreement with the ex-FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) in 2016, the government embedded restorative justice practices in their transitional justice mechanisms. The current government has launched a campaign called “Total Peace” to bring all other armed groups to the negotiation table.⁸²

• Mindanao, Philippines—During the armed struggle, Indigenous and Moro Muslim communities established peace zones in which no armed groups were allowed to engage in combat.⁸³

• Liberia—After the Liberian civil war, the former president was sent to the International Criminal Court, and the country had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. However, reconciliation was not realized at a local level until the country instituted a customary, indigenous accountability and healing process called the “Palava Hut.”⁸⁴

Driver #3: Development of platforms for capacity building in education, skills, and civic capital formation

Civic capital

Institutional support:

1. Network and information assets—use communication protocols as reconciliation resources

2. Strengths-based approaches—build capacity for the agency of survivors and perpetrators

3. Reflective practices—provide accountable/regular avenues for processing ongoing harms

Respondent expansions:

Another critical sociopolitical container is education. Schools and educational policy can impact reconciliation in helpful or harmful ways depending upon local realities such as intergroup interactions, and which groups can afford to pay school fees versus those who cannot or do not have access to certain types of educational opportunities, etc. When access is denied or unequal, in the longer term this may lead to a lack of skilled individuals, less educated groups, lack of social mobility, and/or shortages of specific/critical professions within specific groups and/or communities, which keeps such communities stuck in cycles of poverty and/or violence. Education is a key area for helping to shift mindsets and build the capacity of a people.

Complexities and opportunities:

1. Information campaigns can make or break reconciliation efforts. Information (fake or verified) travels at the speed of social networks. Institutions can recognize the dissemination power they wield through networks of information and use these in service of reconciliation.

2. Mediums such as appreciative inquiry,⁸⁵ transformative scenario planning,⁸⁶ or everyday peace processes can be used to implement strengths-based approaches.⁸⁷

3. Institutions can develop joint spaces for processing ongoing harm aftermaths as well as joint future-view creation. These narratives can be transmitted intergenerationally (formally or informally) in ways that foster prosocial relations across time.

Examples and applications:

• Venezuela—The Boston Group works with government, opposition leaders, and civil society to meet, hold dialogue, and problem-solve together around chief issues that affect all conflicting parties. Because of their work, they have been asked to represent civil society at the negotiation talks in Mexico.⁸⁸

• Northern Ireland—Former combatants were trained to become community mediators and restorative justice facilitators to prevent communal violence and help divert juvenile offenders caught in the criminal legal system.⁸⁹

• Bosnia-Herzegovina—After the Balkans war, ex-combatants began meeting to go through joint trauma healing processes; and because of the trust and relationships that were built, the ex-combatants decided to take pilgrimages to each other’s war memorial sites and hear the testimonies of victim-survivors. This was a powerful time of reflection and reconciliation, as each side recognized the humanity and dignity of the other side (their former enemies).⁹⁰

Driver #4: Advocacy of inclusive governance and institutional reform

Governance capital

Institutional support:

1. Reconciliation laws and policies—create legitimation in law and regulatory frameworks

2. Restorative approaches—shift culture/policies from punitive to reintegrative

3. Budget and resources—address current and historical harms through reparations

Respondent expansions:

The public narrative model is based on stories or narratives of self that involve looking at history/historical harm and the present in order to move forward. One example was done in the Mississippi Delta in work involving some unsolved murders during a particular period in the civil rights era. The objective was mainly to examine these issues not just for historical punishment purposes, but to figure out how to find a way forward. This approach addresses the challenge of how to include people who may be considered historical perpetrators. One way to get people involved who were historically considered the perpetrators is to have them know that the conversation is focusing with some emphasis on history, but more primarily on the present and how the group is going to address the harm in order to move forward—not address the harm for the sake of punishment, but to figure out how they can actually move forward. Individuals must build up trust and confidence in any such process.

Complexities and opportunities:

1. Equity, representation, and dignity are foundations for durable peace. Prioritizing identity needs, just redistribution, and participative processes are primary institutional support strategies.

2. Research suggests that retributive punishments tend to continue cycles of violence.⁹¹ Instead, integrating restorative justice policies and culture into communal, institutional, and national life enshrines reconciliatory engagement norms at all levels of society.

3. Various respondents identified early warning systems and risk-reduction planning as important violence-prevention strategies. Reconciliation processes can be proactive by institutionalizing budget allocations for such prevention.

Examples and applications:

• New Zealand—This is the first and only country to transform its national juvenile criminal system using a restorative justice approach.⁹²

• Rwanda—After the genocide, a hybridized process called “Gacaca Courts” was developed. It integrated traditional customary practices and Western legal processes, which led to the sentencing of 120,000 people accused of genocidal crimes in a 13-year span.⁹³

• Vietnam—For 20 years after the US-Vietnam war, there were no formal diplomatic relations between the two countries. However, over that time, many citizen diplomacy efforts were initiated between veterans, victim-survivors, and peace advocacy groups. When official diplomatic ties were restored, the two countries embarked on a reconciliation process that resulted in the United States giving $1.8 billion worth of humanitarian aid, health assistance, and support in dealing with exposure to the chemical Agent Orange, unexploded bombs, and the identification of those killed in the war.⁹⁴

In addition to the institutional support identified previously, various respondents identified evaluation as another important tool for analyzing reconciliation efficacy. Several crosscutting themes emerged in Sherwood and colleagues’ literature review on reconciliation assessment, including the importance of inclusion/pluralism as enabling support structures and of locally owned and community-driven processes. The authors describe their findings as follows:

Woodrow and Oatley (2013) note the importance of diverse stakeholders and suggest local knowledge should shape what success looks like in each context. In other words, because conflict is idiosyncratic, programs and evaluations must consider local knowledge. This includes developing clear, context-laden indicators to monitor throughout an intervention, since indicators that are unclear or created outside a given context may hinder peace practice.…

[In] terms of intervention methodologies, evaluations with TOCs heavily emphasized bottom-up, grassroots approaches to reconciliation work. As the peace-building field is in the throes of a “local turn,” deploying these methodologies may be a product of a growing emphasis on locally led conflict resolution/peace-building methodologies. In the case of these evaluations, locally led reconciliation processes sought specifically to prevent future violence and destructive conflict by implementing peaceful conflict reconciliation processes, strategies, tactics, and capacities.⁹⁵

A final crosscutting theme noted by respondents identified the importance of engaging reconciliation at both the individual and structural levels simultaneously. Critiques of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission highlight this omission: “It is essential to recognize that the South African TRC favored an individualized approach that placed victims and perpetrators at the center of the process, rather than the apartheid system and its structures of governance, and that this framing may limit the applicability of the South African model to other settings.”⁹⁶ Resonating with this critique, interview respondents made similar observations:

Examinations of history must not only be based on dialogue of what happened but must also examine the compounding inequalities stemming from multigenerational harm or marginalization/oppression, the multigenerational accumulation of power, and ongoing compounding impacts of harm in order to better understand how to mitigate present day conflicts and foster reconciliation. Dialogue on its own, or models based on just looking at the past in a narrow sense, especially when solely focused on the past with no accounting for an equitable future, do not disrupt existing power differentials that have been established by conflict.⁹⁷

The data gathered for this evidence review highlight the need to contextualize, localize, and engage most affected populations. These emphases should remain a high priority for practitioners and theorists alike.

Putting It All Together: A Reconciliation Matrix

The evidence review’s document analysis, surveys, and in-depth interviews point to elements that have both individual and collective import. The following reconciliation matrix provides a sense of the elements’ interrelatedness (see table 4).

RECONCILIATION MATRIX ASSUMPTIONS

1.  The elements in the reconciliation matrix should be viewed as recommendations or “signposts” to be leveraged, not normative standards. The matrix provides only a sampling of reconciliation processes rather than a comprehensive list.

2.  The matrix is not meant to imply hierarchy or linearity. Reconciliation often occurs in a circular fashion, sometimes simultaneously or consecutively and/or at times on multivariant platforms. Reconciliation is a jagged, uneven, and often messy process—a reality that is not always well represented in chart form.

3.  For reconciliation processes to be maximized, they must have a high level of collaboration, communication, and commitment across the political groupings, conflicting actors, civil society entities, and community-based organizations involved. This presents a challenge in postwar contexts, as inevitably, there are “spoilers” in peace and reconciliation processes—those who stand to benefit from perpetuating conflict. These potential saboteurs need to be managed effectively if reconciliation is not to be stalled or hijacked.

4.  Finally, the matrix assumes a certain level of political goodwill, access to sustained public and private resources, and an engaged civil society. Of course, in the real world, these important resources rarely all align at one time. Political goodwill is hard to come by, and most conflicts are affected by resource constraints and compromised civil society capacity. Even when state resources are available, they are not always prioritized toward the work of reconciliation. Reconciliation investments need to be viewed as decadal funding initiatives, orchestrated through multisectoral structures.

Table 4.  Reconciliation Matrix

Drivers

Processes

Skill sets

Institutional support

Driver #1:

Investment in individual and collective healing

Level:

Interpersonal and intragroup

TOC:

Trauma-informed

• Gathering victim statements

• Truth-telling and public hearings

• Memorialization rituals

• Psychosocial support services

• Trauma recovery processes

• Listening; nonviolent communication

• Public facilitation competency

• Cultural and arts-based approaches

• Basic counseling skills

• Trauma, resilience, coping strategies

Moral capital:

Ethical champions

Acknowledgment

Active transparency

Driver #2:

Cocreation of intercommunal dialogue and peaceful relations protocols

Level:

Horizontal (between communities)

TOC:

Contact theory

• Joint decision-making protocols

• Power sharing and equity inventories

• Sustained dialogue processes

• Conflict systems mapping

• Appreciative inquiry

• Group facilitation

• Problem-solving and mediation skills

• Capacity in principled negotiation

• System analysis skills

• Strengths-based approaches

Social capital:

Due process

Rules of engagement

Peace DNA

Driver #3:

Development of platforms for capacity building in education, skills, and civic capital formation

Level:

Horizontal and vertical (across civil society)

TOC:

Capacitation theory

• Restorative justice (RJ) processes

• Family group conferencing

• Circle processes

• Reparations for historical harms

• Transformative scenario planning

• Knowledge of RJ process and practice

• Conflict facilitation skills

• Circle keeping and empathic response

• Knowledge of violence cycle and repair

• De-escalation and scenario building

Civic capital:

Network and information assets

Strengths-based approaches

Reflective practice

Driver #4:

Advocacy of inclusive governance and institutional reform

Level:

Vertical (between civilians and government)

TOC:

Inclusion theory

• Nonviolent strategic action

• Lobby and advocacy campaigns

• Policy and legislative change

• Public participation

• Deliberative democracy processes

• Community organizing skills

• Access to infrastructural supports

• Knowledge of political process

• Trust building and social capital equity

• Advocacy and consensus-building skills

Governance capital:

Reconciliation laws and policies

Restorative approaches

Budget and resources

USING THE MATRIX: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR POLICYMAKERS, FUNDERS, AND PRACTITIONERS

The reconciliation matrix is primarily a tool to help envision what reconciliation could look like and then help align programming with designated outcomes. Reconciliation involves complex and multifaceted processes that need careful alignment across many moving parts of the system. This reconciliation matrix is one tool to assist in that balancing act.

Practitioners. The matrix can be used as an outcomes-to-activation (“backward planning”) tool.⁹⁸ This involves beginning with projected outcomes and then planning toward levels of intervention, specific processes, and finally possible activities. Additionally, the processes and skill sets section can be used to evaluate context readiness for reconciliation implementation. The presence of enabling institutional support is also crucial. Practitioners may want to use the institutional support section to identify the specific markers most likely to enable or impede their planned programmatic work.

Policymakers and funders. Policymakers may want to use the matrix to align reconciliation initiatives with their legislation and implementation protocols. A deep-dive analysis of the necessary support structures could help policymakers better target their legislative reform and help donors prioritize where to spend their funding.

Conclusion

Using a mixed-methods design, this evidence review included a document analysis, surveys with practitioners, and in-depth interviews with reconciliation experts to identify the support structures and enabling factors necessary for reconciliation to be achieved. The findings suggest that four drivers need to be in place for reconciliation to be viable:

1.  Individual and collective healing

•  Supporting interpersonal and collective truth-telling, trauma recovery, and memorialization

2.  Intercommunal dialogue and peaceful relations protocols

•  Advancing protocols for empathic encounters and shared problem-solving

3.  Capacity building for education, skills, and civic capital formation

•  Transforming historical harms through restorative and transformative justice

4.  Inclusive governance and institutional reform

•  Setting mandates for structural change to increase social justice delivery

The reconciliation matrix created integrates the various essential elements—drivers, processes, skill sets, and institutional support—into one schematic to bolster better design and measurement for reconciliation success. Reconciliation is central to achieving an inclusive and durable peace—a peace that recognizes the dignity of all humanity.

My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours.⁹⁹

Notes

1.    Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, in Shirley Du Boulay, Tutu: Voice of the Voiceless (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1988), 213.

2.    For more on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) process, see “Truth Commission: South Africa,” United States Institute of Peace, December 1, 1995, https://www.usip.org/publications/1995/12/truth-commission-south-africa. For a critique of the South African TRC, see Siphiwe Ignatius Dube, “The TRC of South Aftrica: A Dialectical Critque of Its Core Concepts” (Toronto: University of Toronto, 2009), https://www.academia.edu/698140/The_TRC_of_South_Africa_A_dialectical_critique_of_its_core_concepts.

3.    Karen Brouneus, “Reconciliation—Theory and Practice for Development Cooperation” (Sundbyberg: Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, 2003), 3, https://www.sida.se/en/publications/reconciliation-theory-and-practice-for-development-cooperation.

4.    Lina Strupinskiene, “What Is Reconciliation and Are We There Yet? Different Types and Levels of Reconciliation: A Case Study of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Journal of Human Rights 16, no. 4 (2017): 452–72, https://doi.org/10.1080/14754835.2016.1197771.

5.    Paul Seils, “The Place of Reconciliation in Transitional Justice: Conceptions and Misconceptions” (New York: International Center for Transitional Justice, 2017), https://www.ictj.org/sites/default/files/ICTJ-Briefing-Paper-Reconciliation-TJ-2017.pdf.

6.    Ernesto Verdeja, Unchopping a Tree: Reconciliation in the Aftermath of Political Violence (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2009).

7.    John Paul Lederach, The Journey Toward Reconciliation (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1999).

8.    Hugo van der Merwe, notes from a presentation on reconciliation given at Wilgespruit Fellowship Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa, August 1998.

9.    Ron Kraybill, “The Cycle of Reconciliation,” Track Two (November 1992).

10.  Olga Botcharova, “Implementation of Track Two Diplomacy: Developing a Model of Forgiveness,” in Forgiveness and Reconciliation—Religion, Public Policy and Conflict Transformation, ed. Raymond Helmick and Rodney Peterson (Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press, 2001), 279–304.

11.  “Resource Pack for Conflict Transformation” (London: International Alert, 1996), https://openlibrary.org/books/OL22257657M/Resource_pack_for_conflict_transformation.

12.  For information on the Gacaca Courts in Rwanda, see “About Gacaca Courts,” Republic of Rwanda National Commission for the Fight against Genocide, https://www.cnlg.gov.rw/index.php?id=112. For more information on Fambul Tok in Sierra Leone, see its website at https://fambultok.org.

13.  Simon Keyes, “Theory of Change and Reconciliation,” October 2021 (unpublished, available upon request).

14.  Nicholas Sherwood, Oakley Hill, Amelia Johnston, and Kelsey Vaughn, “Evidence Review MHCR Understanding Reconciliation TOCs,” February 2022 (unpublished, available upon request); also see Nicholas Sherwood and Oakley Hill, “MHCR’s Evidence Review of Reconciliation Theories of Change: What Is the State of the Practice,” Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation, September 22, 2022, https://www.mhcr.gmu.edu/news/mhcrs-evidence-review-of-reconciliation-theories-of-change-what-is-the-state-of-the-practice.

15.  Sherwood and colleagues provided the following description of their quantitative analysis for this paper: “Univariate analysis was conducted to gain an understanding of how, why, and when reconciliation practitioners use theories of change (TOCs) in their work. The analytical process consisted of several steps. First, the data were uploaded into R software and reviewed to gain a sense of general response patterns and the presence of missing data. Next, descriptive statistics for demographic variables were extracted and reviewed to understand the participant characteristics. Then, variables were converted into factors to assess response distributions for each question. Finally, for variables with more than three, response categories, bar plots were produced using the ggplot2 package in R to visualize response distributions.” See Sherwood et al., “Evidence Review MHCR Understanding Reconciliation TOCs,” 11.

16.  Sherwood and colleagues note the following study limitations: “Finally, it is important to note that the small sample size for this study limits the potential to draw generalizable conclusions about the results. Future studies would ideally obtain a larger and more diverse sample in terms of role, gender, and other factors. In addition to providing more rich information, a larger sample would allow the use of more complex statistical analysis techniques to explore patterns.” See Sherwood et al., “Evidence Review MHCR Understanding Reconciliation TOCs,” 31.

17.  Sherwood et al., “Evidence Review MHCR Understanding Reconciliation TOCs.”

18.  Angelina Mendes, “USIP Reconciliation Evidence Review: Qualitative Expert Interviews Component,” February 2022 (unpublished, available upon request).

19.  Interview respondent quote; see Mendes, “USIP Reconciliation Evidence Review.”

20.  Glen H. Stassen, Just Peacemaking: Transforming Initiatives for Justice and Peace (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992). See also Glen Stassen, ed., Just Peacemaking: Ten Practices for Abolishing War (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 1998).

21.  Keyes, “Theory of Change and Reconciliation.”

22.  Franklin M. Lartey, “Chaos, Complexity, and Contingency Theories: A Comparative Analysis and Application to the 21st Century Organization,” Journal of Business Administration Research 9, no. 1 (2020): 44–51, https://doi.org/10.5430/jbar.v9n1p44.

23.  Interview respondent quote: see Mendes, “USIP Reconciliation Evidence Review.”

24.  Peter T. Coleman, The Five Percent: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts (New York: BBS Public Affairs, 2011).

25.  For more information on engaging insider mediators, see “Engaging with Insider Mediators: Sustaining Peace in an Age of Turbulence” (New York: United Nations Development Programme), https://www.undp.org/publications/engaging-insider-mediators-sustaining-peace-age-turbulence.

26.  Interview respondent quote; see Mendes, “USIP Reconciliation Evidence Review.”

27.  Interview respondent quote; see Mendes, “USIP Reconciliation Evidence Review.”

28.  Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror (New York: Basic Books, 1997).

29.  Bessel A. van der Kolk, Alexander C. McFarlane, and Lars Weisaeth, eds., Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society (New York: Gilford Press, 1996); Peter A. Levine, Waking the Tiger: Trauma Healing (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1997); Sandra L. Bloom, Creating Sanctuary: Toward the Evolution of Sane Societies (New York and London: Routledge Press, 1997).

30.  Interview respondent quote; see Mendes, “USIP Reconciliation Evidence Review.”

31.  John Burton, Conflict: Human Needs Theory (London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 1990); see also Manfred A. Max-Neef, Human Scale Development: Conception, Application and Further Reflections (New York: Apex Press, 1991).

32.  Howard Zehr, Transcending: Reflections of Crime Victims (Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 2001).

33.  Richard G. Tedeschi and Lawrence G. Calhoun, “Posttraumatic Growth: Conceptual Foundations and Empirical Evidence,” Psychological Inquiry 15, no. 1 (2004): 1–18, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20447194; Richard G. Tedeschi and Lawrence G. Calhoun, Trauma and Transformation: Growing in the Aftermath of Suffering (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1995).

34.  Howard Zehr, Doing Life: Reflections of Men and Women Serving Life Sentences (Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 1996).

35.  Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Woman Confronts the Legacy of Apartheid (New York: Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co., 2004).

36.  John Braithwaite, Crime, Shame, and Integration (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

37.  Karl Bartsch and Evelyn Bartsch, Stress and Trauma Healing: A Manual for Caregivers (Johannesburg, South Africa: Mennonite Central Committee, 1996); “STAR: Strategies for Trauma Awareness & Resilience,” The Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, Eastern Mennonite University, https://emu.edu/cjp/star/; Michael Niconchuk et al., “The Field Guide for Barefoot Psychology Manual” (Boston, MA: Beyond Conflict, 2020), https://beyondconflictint.org/what-we-do/curent-intitatives/migrant-and-refugee-crisis/the-field-guide-for-barefoot-psychologists/.

38.  Emmanuel Katongole and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Mirror to the Church: Resurrecting Faith after Genocide in Rwanda (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Press, 2009).

39.  Carl Stauffer, “Humility, Forgiveness, and Restorative Justice: From the Personal to the Political,” in The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Humility, ed. Mark Alfano, Michael P. Lynch, and Alessandra Tanesini (London: Routledge Press, 2021), 157–69.

40.  Geiko Muller-Fahrenholz, The Art of Forgiveness: Theological Reflections on Healing and Reconciliation (Geneva: World Council of Churches Publications, 1997), 25; Everett Worthington Jr., Five Steps to Forgiveness: The Art and Science of Forgiving (New York: Crown Publishing, 2001); Everett Worthington Jr, ed., Dimensions of Forgiveness: Psychological Research & Theological Perspectives (Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press, 1998); Simon Wiesenthal, The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness (New York: Schocken Books, 1997).

41.  Interview respondent quote; see Mendes, “USIP Reconciliation Evidence Review.”

42.  Interview respondent quote; see Mendes, “USIP Reconciliation Evidence Review.”

43.  Thomas F. Pettigrew, “Future Directions for Intergroup Contact Theory and Research,” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 32, no. 3 (2008): 187–99, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0147176708000035; Nunit Schnabel, Arie Nadler, Daphna Canetti-Nisim, and Johannes Ulrich, “The Role of Acceptance and Empowerment in Promoting Reconciliation from the Perspective of the Needs-Based Model,” Social Issues and Policy Review 2, no.1 (2008): 159–86, doi:10.1111/j.1751-2409.2008.00014.x.

44.  Blake M. Reik, Samuel L. Gaertner, John F. Dovidio, Marilynn B. Brewer, Eric W. Mania, and Marika J. Lamoreaux, “A Social-Psychological Approach to Postconflict Reconciliation,” in The Social Psychology of Intergroup Reconciliation, ed. Arie Nadler, Thomas Malloy, and Jeffrey D. Fisher (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 255–74; Vamik Volkan, Killing in the Name of Identity: A Study of Bloody Conflicts (Durham, NC: Pitchstone Press, 2006).

45.  Carl Stauffer and Johanna Turner, “The New Generation of Restorative Justice,” in The International Routledge Handbook of Restorative Justice, ed. Theo Gavrielides (Oxford: Routledge, 2018), 442–61.

46.  Verdeja, Unchopping a Tree.

47.  Cornelia Flora and Jan Flora, Rural Communities: Legacy + Change (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2008).

48.  For more information on network weaving, see Valdis Krebs and June Holley, “Building Smart Communities through Network Weaving,” orgnet.com, http://orgnet.com/BuildingNetworks.pdf.

49.  Libby Hoffman, The Answers Are There: Building Peace from the Inside Out (Saco, ME: Blue Chair Press, 2022), 57–68; Severine Autesserre, The Frontlines of Peace: An Insider’s Guide to Changing the World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021).

50.  Ronald Fisher, Margarita Tadevosyan, and Esra Cuhadar, “The USIP Learning Agenda: An Evidence Review—Track 2 Dialogues,” 2022 (unpublished, available on request).

51.  Adam B. Seligman, Rahel R. Wasserfall, and David W. Montgomery, Living with Difference: How to Build Community in a Divided World (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2015).

52.  All the respondent quotes in table 2 are taken from the reconciliation expert interviews conducted by Angelina Mendes; see Mendes, “USIP Reconciliation Evidence Review.”

53.  Katongole, Mirror to the Church.

54.  For more information on victim-survivor statements, see “Victim Impact Statements,” Just Alternatives, https://justalternatives.org/victim-impact-statements-links-for-victim-survivors/.

55.  For more information on the right to truth, see “Truth: OHCHR and Transitional Justice,” United Nations Human Rights, Office of the High Commissioner, https://www.ohchr.org/en/transitional-justice/truth.

56.  For more information on memorialization, see Judy Barsalou and Victoria Baxter, “The Urge to Remember: The Role of Memorials in Social Reconstruction and Transitional Justice,” (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2007), https://www.usip.org/publications/2007/01/urge-remember-role-memorials-social-reconstruction-and-transitional-justice.

57.  Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz, The Little Book of Victim Offender Conferencing: Bringing Victims and Offenders Together in Dialogue (Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 2009).

58.  Carolyn Yoder, The Little Book of Trauma Healing: When Violence Strikes and Community Security Is Threatened (Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 2005).

59.  Sherwood et al., “Evidence Review MHCR Understanding Reconciliation TOCs,” 8; the authors note complexities regarding whether contact between conflicting parties is necessary for reconciliation to occur. They observe that “some programs claim to be reconciliatory, but do not bring people in contact after violence has occurred. These programs promoted inter-ethnic tolerance, peace, and reconciliation as moral values, and often consisted of radio programs where stories about people across conflict divides were reconciled. While there is no consensus about what is and is not included under the umbrella term ‘reconciliation,’ most definitions implicitly or explicitly infer contact. Since several evaluations considered in this report self-identify their program as reconciliatory and do not bring people together after violence has occurred, this leaves us with the question—can reconciliation occur without contact? Should these programs be excluded on the grounds that they do not conform to contact-based practices, or should they be considered a form of vicarious reconciliation?”

60.  Sam Kaner, Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making (BC, Canada: New Society Publishers, 1996).

61.  For information on the powercube analysis model, see “What Is the Powercube?,” powercube, www.powercube.net/analyse-power/what-is-the-powercube/.

62.  For more information on sustained dialogue, see the Sustained Dialogue Institute’s website, https://sustaineddialogue.org/.

63.  For more information on conflict systems mapping, see the websites of the consulting groups Engaging Inquiry and Human Systems Dynamics Institute, https://engaginginquiry.com/ and https://www.hsdinstitute.org/.

64.  David Cooperrider and Diana Whitney, Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Revolution in Change (Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2005).

65.  Miroslav Volf, The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006); John Paul Lederach, The Moral Imagination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

66.  Howard Zehr, The Little Book of Restorative Justice (Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 2015). Restorative justice (RJ) asks what harms have been committed, what needs have been generated, and who is obligated to make things right. Guided by the values of inclusion, encounter, amends, and reintegration, RJ aims to offer a healing justice. Also see Howard Zehr, Changing Lenses: A New Focus for Crime and Justice (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1990); Daniel Van Ness and Karen Strong, Restoring Justice (London: Routledge Press, 1997).

67.  Allan MacRae and Howard Zehr, The Little Book of Family Group Conferences: New Zealand Style (Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 2004).

68.  Kay Pranis, The Little Book of Circle Processes: A New/Old Approach to Peacemaking (Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 2005).

69.  David Anderson Hooker, The Little Book of Transformative Community Conferencing: A Hopeful, Practical Approach to Dialogue (New York: Good Books, 2016); David Anderson Hooker and Amy Potter Czajkowski, Transforming Historical Harms (Harrisonburg, VA: STAR, Eastern Mennonite University, 2012).

70.  Adam Kahane, Transformative Scenario Planning: Working Together to Change the Future (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2012).

71.  Gene Sharp, Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice and 21st Century Potential (Manchester, NH: Extending Horizons Books, 2005); Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephen, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011).

72.  Lisa VeneKlasen, Valerie Miller, Debbie Budlender, and Cindy Clark, eds., A New Weave of Power, People & Politics: The Action Guide for Advocacy and Citizen Participation (Warwickshire, UK: Practical Action Publishing, 2007).

73.  Thalia Gonzalez, “The Legalization of Restorative Justice: A Fifty-State Empirical Analysis,” Utah Law Review 2019, no. 5 (2020): Article 3, https://dc.law.utah.edu/ulr/vol2019/iss5/3/.

74.  E. Franklin Dukes, Resolving Public Conflict: Transforming Community and Governance (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996).

75.  Dukes, Resolving Public Conflict.

76.  Simon Keyes, “Mapping Reconciliation” (Washington, DC: Mary Hoch Reconciliation Center, 2019), 18–25, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d0d32005d7640000177b27d/t/5d6733dd0d5ff60001df2014/1567044574969/Mapping-Reconciliaiton-.pdf.

77.  Interview respondent quote; see Mendes, “USIP Reconciliation Evidence Review.”

78.  All of the respondent quotes in table 3 are taken from the reconciliation expert interviews conducted by Angelina Mendes; see Mendes, “USIP Reconciliation Evidence Review.”

79.  Mueni wa Muiu, “Unsung Heroes and Heroines: The Role of People and Organizations in South Africa’s Liberation Struggle,” African Studies Review 50, no. 1 (2007): 133–39, doi: 1353/arw.2005.0124.

80.  For more information about the Australian Sorry Day, see “National Sorry Day—26 May 2022,” Australian Government, Department of Health and Aged Care, May 25, 2022, https://www.health.gov.au/news/national-sorry-day-26-may-2022.

81.  For more information on the dissemination of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission findings, see “Witness to Truth,” https://www.sierraleonetrc.org/.

82.  Gunther Maihold, “Colombia’s Path to ‘Total Peace,’ ” SWP, September 20, 2022, https://www.swp-berlin.org/en/publication/colombias-path-to-total-peace.

83.  For more information on Mindanao Peace Zones, see Pushpa Iyer, “Peace Zones of Mindanao, Philippines: Civil Society Efforts to End Violence” (Cambridge, MA: CDA, 2004), https://www.cdacollaborative.org/publication/peace-zones-of-mindanao-philippines-civil-society-efforts-to-end-violence/.

84.  For more information on Palava Huts in Liberia, see “Peace Hut Alliance for Conflict Transformation in Liberia,” Earth Treasure Vase Global Healing Project, https://earthtreasurevase.org/liberia-peacebuilding-project/.

85.  Cooperrider and Whitney, Appreciative Inquiry.

86.  Kahane, Transformative Scenario Planning.

87.  Pamina Firchow, Reclaiming Everyday Peace: Local Voices in Measurement and Evaluation After War (London: Cambridge University Press, 2018).

88.  For more information on the Boston Group in Venezuela and its support in the Mexico Talks, see “The Boston Group Supports Mexico Talks,” Orinoco Tribune, September 23, 2021, https://orinocotribune.com/the-boston-group-supports-mexico-talks/.

89.  Brian Gormally, “From Punishment Violence to Restorative Justice in Northern Ireland,” Accord Insight no. 2 (2015): 28–29, https://www.c-r.org/accord/engaging-armed-groups-insight/northern-ireland-punishment-restorative-justice-northern.

90.  For more information on Bosnia-Herzegovina ex-combatant trauma healing and reconciliation, see Iamaneh Schweiz, “Bosnia and Herzegovina: From Trauma Work to Reconciliation,” Swiss Peace, March 2018, https://www.swisspeace.ch/apropos/bosnien-und-herzegowina-ueber-traumaarbeit-zur-versoehnung/.

91.  Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001); James Gilligan, Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic (New York: Vintage Books, 1997).

92.  For more information on restorative justice in New Zealand, see “How Restorative Justice Works,” New Zealand Ministry of Justice, https://www.justice.govt.nz/courts/criminal/charged-with-a-crime/how-restorative-justice-works/.

93.  For more information on the Gacaca Courts in Rwanda, see Hollie N. Brehm, Christopher Uggen, and Jean Damascene Gasanabo, “Genocide, Justice, and Rwanda’s Gacaca Courts,” Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 30, no. 3 (2014): 333–52, https://doi.org/10.1177/1043986214536660.

94.  Paul Morrow and Shelley Inglis, “Coming to Terms with Legacies of the Vietnam War” (Dayton, OH: University of Dayton, 2021), https://ecommons.udayton.edu/human_rights_rptspromo/3.

95.  Sherwood et al., “Evidence Review MHCR Understanding Reconciliation TOCs”, 7.

96.  Bennett Collins and Alison M.S. Watson, “Examining the Potential for an American Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” Carnegie Ethics Online, February 5, 2015, https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/media/series/ethics-online/examining-the-potential-for-an-american-truth-and-reconciliation-commission.

97.  Interview respondent quote; see Mendes, “USIP Reconciliation Evidence Review.”

98.  For more information on backward planning, see Nilka Aviles and Kristin Grayson, “Backward Planning—How Assessment Impacts Teaching and Learning,” Intercultural Development Research Association, August 2017, https://www.idra.org/resource-center/backward-planning-assessment-impacts-teaching-learning/.

99.  Desmond Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness (New York: Images Publishing, 2000), https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/165597-ubuntu-speaks-of-the-very-essence-of-being-human.