# Reconciliation studies

Since about the 2010s, reconciliation studies has been a new scientific approach in the field of peace and conflict studies. It has commonalities with peacebuilding, conflict transformation, and transitional justice research, and to a lesser extent with academic work on peace psychology, conflict resolution, conflict management, mediation, security studies, memory studies, and trauma and resilience studies.

## Definition

Reconciliation is a critical part of the peacebuilding process and is intertwined with achieving justice, reducing violence, and conflict transformation. Discussions are still ongoing whether reconciliation is a process, an outcome, an ideal and perhaps utopian goal, or a specific stage or moment in the process of overcoming violent conflict. However, there is a certain tendency to see reconciliation as an overarching concept for the long-term process to create better relationships after violence. Many scholars and practitioners also stress the importance of reconciliation efforts for the cessation of violence in the middle of conflict. Reconciliation researcher Martin Leiner defines reconciliation studies as the "scholarly description, interpretation and evaluation of processes to develop 'normal' and if possible 'good' relationships between states, groups, organizations, and individuals reacting against past, present or preventing future grave incidents such as Wars, Civil Wars, Genocides, Atrocities, Forced Displacement, Enslavement, Dictatorship, Oppression, Colonialism, Apartheid, and other Human Rights Violations and injustices, and creating a scientific discourse of developing a common future to enable the transformation of conflicts towards the path of peace." Stressing the main goal of reconciliation as improved intergroup relations and the building or rebuilding of trust, Professor Karina V. Korostelina defines reconciliation as "a process of management of social identities and reckoning with the past. Reconciliation processes depend on interrelations among conflict, power, social identity, and collective memory/ narratives about history."
According to the Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy, political reconciliation includes the following practices: "Apologies, Memorials, Truth Telling, Amnesties, Trials and Punishment, Lustration, Reparations, Forgiveness and Participation in Deliberative Processes" Reconciliation is also viewed as a process of building long-term peace between former enemies through bilateral initiatives and institutions across governments and societies. Other scholars would add at least trauma therapies, encounter programs, and the construction of a common human security structure in order to achieve no repetition.
Within this field, reconciliation studies are characterized by four guiding assumptions:
* Relationship. Reconciliation studies are focusing on the question of how trustful and cooperative relationships can be (re)built in the face of grave incidents of violence. This implies a closeness of reconciliation studies to philosophical and scientific anthropologies of humans as relational animals (Hegel 1807, Buber 1923, Rosa 2012, Fuchs 2007, du Toit 2017). This focus on relationships has also practical consequences. For many reconciliation scholars, their field also includes the study of the distortions of relationships before grave incidents are happening. The social construction of enemies, pathologies of communication connected with imaginaries of the other (Kearney 2003), frames for war, missed reconciliation in the initial moments of conflict, certain long-term structural realities of discrimination such as Apartheid, racism, islamophobia, antisemitism, antiziganism, ableism, xenophobia, classism, patriarchate, colonialism, slavery, and different cultural habits of dehumanization and exploitation often indicate needs and possibilities for reconciliation in order to create better relationships before violent incidents occur.
* Intergroup and Identity Dynamics. Reconciliation not only creates a foundation for peaceful coexistence but also promotes cooperation between conflicting parties based on the management of social identities and addressing a contentious past. It requires reduction of intergroup threat, relative deprivation, and addressing trauma. It also involves the dissolution of rigid social boundaries and the formation of common and cross-cutting identities; these identities then act as a foundation for stable and peaceful coexistence building on the respect and trust between former enemies. Thus, reconciliation processes are deeply rooted in interconnections between conflict, power, social identity, and collective memory.
* Inclusiveness. Reconciliation studies often assume that all parties involved in a distortion of a relationship must be integrated into the process of reconciliation and that multiple kinds of processes of reconciliation (such as reconciliation with oneself, with the own group and with others) are intertwined and are happening simultaneously. Reconciliation studies try to overcome limited concepts of reconciliation such as working only on individual I-Thou-relationships between persons or only working in so called "post-conflict settings".
* Transdisciplinary. The factors why reconciliation succeeds or fails are so multiple and complex that transdisciplinary research including a wide range of disciplines is required.
* Scientific ambition. An important group of reconciliation scholars, the group that founded the International Association for Reconciliation Studies (IARS), aims at the goal of lifting reconciliation studies from the self-reflection of practitioners to a high-level scientific field.

## Historical background
### History of reconciliation

Practices of reconciliation are indispensable for the survival of human communities, because without restoration of relationships after grave incidents - which always happen - community is put into question. These practices can be traced back to animal behavior and have been documented in every so far described human society. They are most salient in intimate relationships, inter- and intragroup relationships, religion and ethics, but also touch other fields of life.

### History of the notion of reconciliation

The history of the notion of reconciliation and its translations into other languages is still to be written. It can be found in ancient Greek comedy (Aristophanes, Lysistrata, performed 411 BC) with reference to peacemaking in the war between Athens and Sparta, in Apostle Paul's writings (2. Cor 5, 11-21), in legal and economic contexts such as accounting, as a key idea in the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel (cf. Rosza 2005) In the 20th century, reconciliation became an often used - and misused - political term. Between others it was misused to legitimize the collaboration with the Nazi occupation in France and to legitimize amnesties for former dictators, but it was also used in a better way as guiding notion for several peace-making initiatives (cf. the NGOs: International Fellowship of Reconciliation, Action Reconciliation Service for Peace), for West Germany's policy of reconciliation after World War II and for the reconciliation processes which took place since the 1990s in South Africa, Rwanda, Northern Ireland and other countries.

### History

From the 1990s on, academic interest in reconciliation started to get traction. From the point of view of many different disciplines and from the experience of practitioners, important studies of reconciliation processes have been presented. The first push for reconciliation as a research topic came from practical work in the field.
Based on his experience of the war in former Yugoslavia, theologian and later professor at Yale, Miroslav Volf published in 1996 Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation.
A year later, the German-Canadian scholar Gregory Baum together with Harold Wells edited the first edition of his book The Reconciliation of People: Challenge to the Churches (1997) promoting the study of reconciliation in both Catholic theology and the WCC. Scholar-practitioner John Paul Lederach published a book in 1998 entitled: Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies and The Journey Towards Reconciliation in 1999. With both books, Lederach was probably the first often read author who focused on reconciliation.
At the same time, scientific studies from different disciplines such as theology, sociology, rhetorics, religious studies, law and psychology came out on the procedures and the contexts of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Most importantly, as an outcome of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission the first research institute on reconciliation was established in Cape Town in 2000: the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation.
Almost in parallel with the research born out of the relative success of the South African reconciliation process, in Israel, out of the desire to reconcile Israelis and Palestinians and of the difficulties in implementing the Oslo Accords, another important research in reconciliation started. It was mainly carried out by social psychologists. In Beer-Sheba, a more social-action related research line has been built by Daniel Bar-On and his successor Shifra Sagy). In Tel-Aviv and Herzliya, Daniel Bar-Tal, Arie Nadler and younger scholars such as Eran Halperin developed basic theories which opened the way to reconciliation studies. The volume From Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation (2004) with mainly Israeli and American authors marks a breakthrough of studies on reconciliation, even if the main argument of Bar-Tal in favor of reconciliation is pronounced more clearly nine years later in his book published Intractable Conflicts. Socio-Psychological Foundation and Dynamics (2013). The main argument is: Many conflicts are intractable. Intractable conflicts have a socio-emotional infrastructure which makes traditional Conflict Resolution through diplomacy and treaties fail because too many strong actors in the society or even entire populations are too much into strong emotions of hatred, mistrust and willingness to impose one's own vision that only a change made by reconciliation can make an intractable conflict tractable. As the Israeli-Palestinian-Conflict or Cyprus Conflict are intractable conflicts, there will be no peace without reconciliation. Arie Nadler from Tel Aviv University co-edited in 2008 the book The Social Psychology of Intergroup Reconciliation. He is as well the creator of a needs-based model of reconciliation, explaining why reconciliation is successful: it is fulfilling the needs of those in the victim position (acknowledgment, agency, apologies, justice, reparation, ...) as well as the needs of the perpetrators (to be part of moral community again and the have a second chance,...).
Around the year 2000, in the US several studies were published on the role of religions in conflict and in reconciliation. In his famous book The Ambivalence of the Sacred, Notre Dame University historian R. Scott Appleby, published a chapter titled "Reconciliation and the Politics of Forgiveness" (2000, pp. 167–206). In a similar way, Marc Gopin from the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution developed religious reconciliation in his book Holy War, Holy Peace (2002, p. 195-197). Together with South Africa and Israel, the US became one of the countries where reconciliation was most studied. Notre Dame based political scientist Daniel Philpott (2006) described the way to reconciliation integrating reconciliation in a liberal-democratic peacemaking framework. Already before, in 2003, a group of authors around the editors David Bloomfield, Teresa Barnes and Luc Huyse had published a more praxis-oriented Handbook Reconciliation after Violent Conflicts. Ireland, the UK and the US were leading in the development of MA-programs on reconciliation. Based on the experiences of reconciliation in Northern Ireland, a first MA study program on conflict resolution and reconciliation was founded in Belfast and Dublin/Trinity College and with different thematic focus at the University of Maine in the US and from the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution. At Winchester University, starting in 2010 the Center for Religion, Reconciliation, and Peace has been founded. In cooperation with the St. Ethelburga's Center for Reconciliation and Peace a MA program called Reconciliation and Peacebuilding was established with the aim of bringing together scientific rigor and practical experience. Constantly growing, the Winchester University program has become a leading academic institution for the formation of practitioners in reconciliation in Europe.

### History

The history of reconciliation studies as an academic project on its own must be distinguished from research and M.A. programs on reconciliation. Reconciliation studies started with the programmatic text by Susan Flämig/Martin Leiner "Reconciliation in the Middle of Dispute". Both have developed the following principles: 1. Reconciliation has to be studied globally- comparative and 2. in a transdisciplinary way, 3. The symbolic meaning of actions, the multi-perspectivity actors in conflicts and different scientific disciplines are taking and the role of the Media require a special hermeneutics of conflict. 4. They suggested to work on a new theory of conflict under the Hölderlin-perspective stating the reconciliation is in the middle of the conflict. When in 2013 the Jena Center for Reconciliation Studies (JCRS) was founded at Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena, the goal was to focus exclusively on reconciliation processes, to research all kinds of reconciliation processes worldwide and to unite scholars from many disciplines to work together in order to understand reconciliation processes in their complexity. A common research project was conducted in cooperation with Arie Nadler, Shifra Sagy from Israel and Mohammed Dajani from Wasatia NGO in the Palestinian territories. The results of this project, which can be considered to be the first larger research project in transdisciplinary reconciliation studies have been published in the book Encountering the Suffering of the Other: Reconciliation Studies amid the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
The JCRS was also the place where the first doctoral program focusing exclusively on reconciliation studies was founded in 2016 under the name "Religion, Conflict, Reconciliation". In 2018, the Academic Alliance for Reconciliation Studies in the Middle East and North Africa (AARMENA) has been established in Jena supporting common research projects and teaching of reconciliation in that region. So far AARMENA supported the accreditation of two MA studies on reconciliation in Jordan, one in the Westbank and one in Gaza. In 2020, the International Association for Reconciliation Studies (IARS) has been founded in Jena.
With the time, other research centers for reconciliation studies have been founded. Like JCRS they are considering reconciliation studies as a scientific study of its own. Two of them are of special importance:
** Center for International Reconciliation Studies at Waseda University /Tokyo led by Professor Toyomi Asano and undertaking the largest research project on reconciliation studies so far.
** Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation at the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, founded in 2019 and led by research professor Antti Pentikäinen which is developing new concepts for reconciliation work such as the "insider reconcilers".
The dynamics of reconciliation studies as an academic field is shown by the publication of handbooks on reconciliation (for example, from the point of view of peace-psychology: Malley-Morrison 2013) and meta-studies such as the development of an ideal typology of four types of reconciliation theories by Fanie du Toit (2018). On the basis of the meanwhile important quantity of studies on reconciliation, he distinguishes four Weberian ideal types: 1. Forgiving embrace, 2. Liberal peace 3. Antagonistic reconciliation and 4. Reconciliation as interdependence.
Reconciliation studies also become an important part of the theories and practice of achieving sustainable peace. Professor Karina V. Korostelina defines a sustainable peace process as "a transformative process of mutual recognition of the complexities of identity dynamics and their functions in achieving peace and justice in post-conflict societies. This approach concentrates on local agency and promotion of diverse voices in defining peace processes and leading societal transformation in societies affected by asymmetric and protracted conflicts." The importance of intergroup reconciliation for sustainable peace is stressed in the strategic peacebuilding approach that defines just peace as involving diverse actors and activities across all sectors of society and in intersubjective approach that acknowledges the diversity of views on just peace, stressing the importance of considering all perspectives in shaping a shared peace framework. These approaches reject a universal notion of just peace, highlighting both the differences between conflicts and the varied understandings of justice held by different parties, with an emphasis on reconciliation, respect and recognition of their identities.

## Controversies in the field

Actual controversies in reconciliation studies concern between others the definition of reconciliation (see above), the measurement of reconciliation, the relationship to neighboring approaches such as Transitional Justice-Research and Conflict Resolution, and the evaluation of the classic cases of reconciliation.
For quantitative measurement of reconciliation, scholars have proposed indirect measurement through behavior (such as frequency of cooperation with the other, symbolic gestures of reconciliation and their acceptance in the population, or comments, reactions and interactions on Social Media), and direct measurements through self-assessment on the quality of relationships and on attitudes towards the other.
Concerning the relationship between transitional justice research and reconciliation studies is determined by the view scholars have on transitional justice and reconciliation. We can distinguish (A.) models of competition underlining that there should be an either-or or a priority in time and importance between justice-oriented activities and reconciliation and (B.) models which see transitional justice as a necessary and to a certain extent independent part of overarching reconciliation policies.
Since the works on intractable conflicts (see Bar-Tal and Mitchell above) the relation between conflict resolution and reconciliation is often seen in a way which understands reconciliation as the overarching process and conflict resolution as part of that process. However, the place of conflict resolution within that concept needs further development.

## Classical cases
### Germany since WWII and Holocaust

After losing WWII and being responsible for the Holocaust, the Federal Republic of Germany as the legal successor of the German Empire was confronted with an almost total breakdown of its moral reputation. From the 1950s on, German State representatives and important parts of the civil society adopted the approach of reconciliation in order to become trusted members of the international community again. Therefore, reconciliation processes with countries such as Israel, France, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, UK, Italy, Greece and other countries have started. There is only one landmark publication in the study those reconciliation processes: The work of the English-American political scientist Lily Gardner-Feldman Germany's Foreign Policy of Reconciliation (2012). This work highlights that the different processes of reconciliation have been a constant of West German politics and has been continued by its different governments. Since reconciliation is a long-term process, only the consistent and continuous orientation towards reconciliation could make the German reconciliation policy successful. Without this policy of reconciliation, German reunification in 1990 would not have been likely to be accepted. In addition to that interpretation and to analyses of speeches by German politicians, Gardner-Feldman discusses a list of factors which contributed in a different degree to the success of Germany's foreign policy of reconciliation: A favorable international context, EU integration, good relations between State leaders such as for example Adenauer and de Gaulle, confrontation with history, Civil Society engagement and religious leaders.
Studies on individual cases of German foreign policy of reconciliation deepened the level of analysis and confirmed or contested that view. The two volumes edited by Urszula Pękala alone and in joint editorship with Irene Dingel Ringen um Versöhnung (English: Wrestling for reconciliation) (2018 and 2019) confirmed the role of the Catholic and Protestant churches in German-Polish reconciliation. Using an interdisciplinary approach, Piotr Burgoński/Gregor Feindt and Bernhard Knorn in their contribution Versöhnung symbolisch kommuniziert. Die Messe in Kreisau am 12. November 1989 (Symbolically communicated reconciliation; The mass at Kreisau on November 12, 1989 in English translation) argue that symbolic communication is important because it is working on the subconsciousness and is creating a meaningful and congruent worldview with future potential. Not a contestation but a different evaluation and terminology has been pronounced by Corinne Defrance, an expert on German-French reconciliation. In newer publications, she contrasts the term of reconciliation by the term of "rapprochement". Defrance is underlining the deficits of German-French reconciliation on topics such as confrontation with history and attacks the "myth" of an achieved reconciliation. For Defrance reconciliation rather is a "never-ending process".
More intense criticism has been pronounced by experts on German-Israel-relations. Daniel Marwecki in his dissertation (2020) argues that there was no reconciliation, but rather an alliance of interests which brought persons such as Adenauer and Ben Gourion together.
A new field of reconciliation studies opened when German government started a reconciliation process with Greece after the 2008 crisis. German state activities to formulate apologies in Martyr villages and supporting projects through a future fund and the German-Greek Youth organization are laudable and create better relationships but reconciliation research also showed that these efforts often failed to meet the expectations to receive reparations of the victims of the war crimes during the Nazi occupation.
All cases of German reconciliation policies show deficits and require critical reconciliation studies.

### Northern Ireland

The transformation of the Northern Ireland conflict from a violent conflict during the times of the "Troubles" into a mainly non-violent political issue, already in a very early stage has been accompanied by Christian Theologians and communities asking for reconciliation, developing the concept of reconciliation, acting for and living reconciliation. Communities such as Corrymeela (established in 1965), ecumenical women's groups are important contexts which inspired and enabled the negotiated settlement of the conflict. Main actors framed their political activities through reconciliation and ongoing debates are inspired by the still lacking full reconciliation. Actual controversies on reconciliation about Northern Ireland conflict are whether reconciliation is the right term to direct further development or whether rather justice or another term would be better. Mayor scientific discussions are as well on the possibility to transfer the quite specific example from Northern Ireland to other conflicts, and whether the lack of a truth and reconciliation commission and of other transitional justice activities has caused problems for the further process.

## Organizations

* Center for International Reconciliation Studies at Waseda University
* Jena Center for Reconciliation Studies
* Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation at the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution
* The Bonn Center for Reconciliation Studies
* The Center for Reconciliation Studies in Saint Stephens University in Canada
* The Center for Reconciliation at Duke University
* The Center for Peace and Reconciliation Studies in Coventry