Reconciliation and the Therapeutic State

Abstract

National reconciliation emerged as a key strategy for conflict management and national reconstruction in political transitions to democracy in the 1980s and 1990s. More recently, reconciliation and human rights discourse has been applied to international humanitarian intervention in states in crisis and in the ‘new wars’. In both cases the focus on the victims of violence is a therapeutic strategy by the state designed to help recover sovereignty and legitimacy through recognition and care. The therapeutic focus on individual well-being and healing through victim-centred truth politics or conflict prevention through behavioural and attitudinal change however, is no substitute for the reconstruction of an inclusive political community.