Die internationale Politik der Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung

Dealing with a society's violent past does not necessarily lead to more justice and reconciliation, as Eva Ottendörfer explains with regard to the case study of Timor-Leste. She challenges the premises of international engagement in transitional justice and presents a reformulation of basic propositions of socialization research: domestic as well as international actors build their position towards international norms in interaction with each other. In that process, an inconsistent policy of international actors can lead to resistance on the domestic level and the formulation of alternative concepts. Based on insights from discourse theory, Eva Ottendörfer presents a model of analysis for processes of transitional justice which reaches beyond the establishment of respective instruments and includes the transmission of their output in state institutions. She also promotes a new understanding of the behavior of international and domestic actors in socialization research in general.