Old truths and new politics

Abstract

This article analyzes the relationship between truth and politics by asking whether the ‘publicness’ of a truth commission – defined by whether it has public hearings, releases a public report, and names perpetrators – contributes to democratization. The article reviews scholarship relevant to the potential democratizing effects of truth commissions and derives mechanisms that help explain this relationship. Work from the transitional justice field as well as democratization and political transition more generally is considered. Using a newly-constructed Truth Commission Publicness Dataset (TCPD), the analysis finds that even after statistically controlling for initial levels of democracy, democratic trends in the years prior to a commission, level of wealth, amnesties and/or trials, the influence of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and different cutoff points for measuring democratization across a number of models, more publicness predicts higher levels of democracy years after the commission has finished its work. The more public a truth commission is, the more it will contribute to democratization. The finding that more public truth commissions are associated with higher levels of democratization indicates particular strategies that policymakers, donors, and civil society activists may take to improve prospects for democracy in a country planning a truth commission in the wake of violence and/or government abuse.

Keywords

democratization public accountability transitional justice truth commissions

Introduction

Nietzsche long ago argued that humans must agree to certain ‘illusions’ in order to live peacefully together. To avoid a constant intellectual war of subject against subject, people must establish ‘that which shall count as “truth” from now on’ (Nietzsche, 1873). We need not wholeheartedly accept Nietzsche’s view of truth as ‘illusions which we have forgotten are illusions’ in order to extract the basic hypothesis that some degree of agreement on relevant facts about the political community, its founding principles, and its history facilitate the harmonious functioning of that community. The crucial questions, of course, revolve around the processes and actors through which such truths come to be established.

The proliferation of truth commissions in recent decades allows for a concrete, empirical examination of this set of questions. Several studies concerned with transitional justice have argued for the positive contribution of public truth-telling processes in the aftermath – or at times even in the midst – of armed conflict or violent authoritarian rule (e.g. Mendez, 2006; Phelps, 2004; Popkin & Roht-Arriaza, 1995). More critical approaches have emphasized the ways in which political elites are motivated by self-interest and/or use processes of public truth telling to craft a particular narrative about what the political community has been and should be – sometimes even for insidious purposes (Moon, 2008; Grodsky, 2007; McAdams, 2001; Wilson, 2001; Mamdani, 2000). Others have mapped out modest formulations of what public truth can do in transitional situations, such as narrowing the range of permissible lies that can be circulated in a society or providing a rhetorical space around which political community can grow (Ignatieff, 1996; comments by Kanan Mayika in Steiner, 1997: 20). Still others have called into question the entire enterprise of public truth-telling in post-conflict situations (Mendeloff, 2004).

Although the transitional justice literature has made excellent progress in mapping empirical relationships between transitional justice mechanisms and political outcomes such as human rights and democracy, the cross-national effort has only recently begun in earnest (Binningsbø et al., 2012; Olsen, Payne & Reiter, 2010; Dancy, Kim & Wiebelhaus-Brahm, 2010; Kim & Sikkink, 2010). In the words of one recent review, ‘basic questions’ on the impacts of transitional justice, such as whether transitional justice mechanisms ‘lead to improvements in the areas of human rights, rule of law and/or democratic practices’, remain unanswered in the academic literature (Thoms, Ron & Paris, 2010). With this article, we aim to contribute to an understanding of the relationship between truth and politics in transitional contexts by taking a slightly different approach than the studies listed above. Instead of asking what transitional justice mechanism or combination of mechanisms influence political outcomes, given the popularity of truth commissions, we start with these bodies and ask what characteristics of truth commissions are likely to facilitate democratization. In other words, instead of attempting to understand whether truth commissions as such contribute to democratization instead of or in combination with trials, amnesties, or a host of other possibilities, we narrow our focus and ask more specifically how the institutional design of a truth commission facilitates or constrains democratization when weighed against other potential institutional designs.

Using quantitative analysis with a newly-constructed dataset, this article finds that the ‘publicness’ of a truth commission does indeed contribute to democratization even when other factors are held constant. The strength of a truth commission’s ‘publicness’ is measured by three indicators: public hearings, the release of a public report, and the identification of perpetrators. We find that truth commissions with stronger publicness scores outperform their less public counterparts even when level of democracy at the time of the commission, per capita GDP, democratic trajectory in the 5 years prior to the commission, the presence or absence of trials and amnesties, and influence of the landmark South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission are considered.

Before we proceed, four points deserve attention. First, this article adopts Freeman’s (2006) definition of truth commission, which will be reproduced below in the course of explaining the dataset. Consistent with his definition, and because democratization is generally conceived as the process by which states transition from some pre-established condition into a democratic political reality, this article will examine only truth commissions held by states. Unofficial truth-telling efforts, while potentially important and often innovative (Bickford, 2007), will not be included in our statistical analysis because they do not include the state and thus would not be expected to help democratize its institutions.

Second, while employing a quantitative approach, we recognize its limitations and have no pretense that this analysis is the final word on the subject. The small number of truth commissions does not allow for more complex structural equation or multi-level modeling; therefore, non-parametric plots and multiple regression are used. In this sense, we are as limited by the small number of truth commissions as other scholars who ask similar questions.¹ Third, while public truth may constrain democratization in individual cases, a comprehensive view reveals that in general, publicness is associated with greater advances in democratization over time. This is an ‘on-average’ approach that may not map neatly onto the complexity of individual cases in all instances. However, the quantitative analyses may help qualitative researchers situate their scholarship in a larger universe of cases as well as select cases for deeper comparison.

Finally, our analysis must confront the difficult issue of endogeneity. Demonstrating the causal impact of transitional justice mechanisms on democratization is difficult because it may be that the conditions that allow for democracy in the first place are the same ones that render trials or truth commissions successful (Nobles, 2010: 176). Previous empirical research has argued that truth commissions facilitate durable peace better in democracies than in autocratic states (Lie, Binningsbø & Gates, 2007). Although the results in that particular study are non-significant, the logic of this perspective is appealing: a more open political environment may allow for the design of truth commissions that are themselves more open and thus better able to accommodate genuine public discussion about past atrocities. We address this difficulty by controlling for both the initial level of democracy for each case and the democratic trajectory of each case in the years prior to the truth commission. In addition, instead of measuring whether the level of democracy in a particular state is associated with truth commission success in that state, we measure change scores, or growth or decline in democracy, in each individual case over time, which also accounts for potentially endogenous factors. Therefore we test whether truth commission publicness is associated with democratization, rather than with democracy. Even after accounting for these potentially confounding factors, controlling for other theoretically-relevant variables, and running several robustness checks, we find that the relationship between a truth commission’s strength of publicness and democratization is strong and significant.

The remainder of this article will proceed in five steps. First, it will review relevant transitional justice and democratization literature to situate its analysis. In so doing, it will identify the hypothesized mechanisms facilitating the relationship between truth commission publicness and democratization. Second, it will present the research design and methods for constructing the dataset and relevant variables on the publicness of 28 state-sponsored truth commissions between 1970 and 2009. Third, following the details of the dataset, the article will present the statistical analyses used to address the research question. Fourth, the quantitative results will be presented and discussed. Fifth, the article will conclude with a discussion of implications – both theoretical and practical – of its findings as well as recommendations for further inquiry.

Publicness advancing democratization: Possible mechanisms and logics

Democratization is a complex phenomenon that eschews simplistic explanations. Indeed the vast literature on the subject testifies to the number of plausible factors that may explain democratization in a given case, from global and regional trends (Huntington, 1991; Brinks & Coppedge, 2006; Pevehouse, 2002) to elite hard/soft-liner splits in authoritarian regimes (O’Donnell & Schmitter, 1986) to the importance of levels and types of wealth (Lipset, 1959; Przeworski, Cheibub & Limongi, 2000) to contentious political episodes (McAdam, Tarrow & Tilly, 2001). This study makes no pretense to explain democratization generally, but rather seeks to understand how the design of a truth commission may facilitate or constrain democratization. If a truth commission is to be held in a particular state, this study asks what features of the institution may aid democratization. It does not pretend that a truth commission alone – even perfectly designed and executed – can democratize a political community, but this study will propose three groups of mechanisms by which the ‘publicness’ of such an institution may help facilitate democratization. The remainder of this section will present these three categories in turn: public hearings in the actual commission, the effects of releasing a public report, and the public naming of perpetrators in the report or some other official forum.

Democratization and procedural openness in truth commissions

In Dahl’s widely-accepted formulation, democracy is comprised of two elements: participation and contestation. Participation refers to the population’s involvement with making political decisions while contestation is concerned with the extent to which political positions are open to competition. The ideal type of democratic government – polyarchy – exhibits high degrees of both (Dahl, 1971). If participation is a crucial constituent element of democracy, then one might expect that participation in the institutions meant to usher in democracy would improve its chances of taking root. Breaking with a past of confidential decisions and inaccessible governance, truth commissions can bring the public into their proceedings. Procedural openness in the form of public hearings allows for this possibility.

Indeed South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission seems to have been at the forefront of a movement to include public hearings in truth commission proceedings. While not democratic in the sense of allowing people to vote on representatives or make substantive decisions, open hearings nevertheless have the potential to allow ordinary people to participate in the construction of the nation’s truth (see, for example, Phelps, 2004). While early truth commissions generally did not feature public hearings, Freeman (2006: 26) notes that ‘more contemporary’ models usually conduct such hearings. Of course, in order to have democratizing effects, public hearings must not be vehicles for cynical manipulation by those who may want to clothe their autocratic power in democratic trappings.

How might genuinely open hearings contribute to separating authoritarian or anarchic pasts from democratic futures? At least two mechanisms exist. First, open hearings may act as a performative signal to the population that the state intends to actualize its commitment to repudiate its past abuses and concentrate on instantiating democracy. States emerging from authoritarian periods are unlikely to command much trust from the population, but the message that the state intends to listen may be one that can signal democratic intent (Freeman, 2006). Genuinely participatory hearings can allow the public, in the words of the director of the Haitian commission Jean Claude Jean, to ‘locate themselves in the process’ (quoted in Hayner, 2001: 82). This may help overcome public skepticism about the motives of the truth commission, particularly in those contexts where people have rarely met the state other than in the form of an armed soldier or the outstretched hand of a tax collector. Even a well-intentioned truth commission, however, will be required to conduct an effective public communications campaign to explain its aims (on rumors about the Sierra Leone TRC, see Kelsall, 2005). Second, open proceedings may create an environment of debate about conceptions of the past and visions of the future (Freeman & Hayner, 2003). Such debate may not be perfectly equal, open or free, but may at least take place under conditions of expanded possibilities for political discourse. Indeed O’Donnell & Schmitter (1986: 48–56) note the surge of civil society activity that often takes place in the midst of transitions (see also Crocker, 2000). A state-led effort to give more voice to such a surge could allow for more discussion about the state’s past and its future than would be permitted by a government intent on pursuing arrangements behind closed doors.

Public proceedings and testimony, however, are by no means unproblematic. At the individual level, Backer (2010) questions the extent to which they transform attitudes toward transitional justice. More disturbingly, Brouneus (2008) finds that women who have testified in the Rwandan Gacaca courts experience harassment and traumatization as a result of their participation. In another study, Brouneus (2010) finds that Gacaca witnesses experience higher levels of depression and post-traumatic stress syndrome than do non-witnesses. These startling findings serve as an important reminder that while there may be a disconnect between aggregate societal outcomes and impacts on individuals, the ultimate goal is to enhance democratization without harming individuals. Further research on these relationships is necessary to arrive at solutions that would enhance potential benefits while mitigating potential harms.

Democratization and truth commission final reports

In her essay ‘Truth and politics’, political philosopher Hannah Arendt (2003[1967]: 556) argues that factual truth can occupy a position antagonistic to political power and is ‘therefore hated by tyrants, who rightly fear the competition of a coercive force they cannot monopolize’. Her schema draws a distinction between truths produced through activities of the human mind, such as science, mathematics, and philosophy, and factual truths about events or circumstances. Factual truths, Arendt argues, are vulnerable to manipulation when they are inconvenient for those in power, but nevertheless ‘possess an infuriating stubbornness that nothing can move except plain lies’ (Arendt, 2003[1967]: 556). From this perspective, truth can stand outside the realm of politics and can act as a constraint on those in power by drawing boundaries around the possible choices of politicians.

In the context of truth commissions, ‘truth’ is most often disseminated in the form of a final public report which summarizes the commission’s findings. Crafting the report is by no means a simple or straightforward exercise. Choices have to be made about what to include, what to exclude, how to present it, and how outreach should be conducted (Chapman & Ball, 2001; Villa-Vicencio & Verwood, 2000). Political realities at the founding of the commission may dictate or circumscribe the contents of the final report, particularly since they are likely to arise in contexts of negotiated settlement (Moon, 2008; Wilson, 2001).

Despite these important limitations, Arendt’s argument about the stubborn quality of factual truths may operate to facilitate democratization – or at least constrain authoritarianism – through four mechanisms. First, it may expose the brutality of the outgoing regime or period of violence for those who were unaware or unwilling to acknowledge its reality. A final report may convince those who lived far from the violence or were relatively apolitical under a dictatorship to repudiate previous power structures and support a democratic future. Or, if it does not have positive ramifications for this segment of the population, it can at least narrow the range of permissible lies that can circulate in the political sphere (Ignatieff, 1996). Second, it may give validation and vigor to civil society groups who had been campaigning for democratic reforms under the previous regime. Third, a public report may provide a foundation for political discussion by bringing the views of different groups into a single realm of comprehensibility (Asmal, Asmal & Roberts, 1996). If contending groups in society are at least willing to agree on a common past, this logic goes, they stand a better chance to forge a common future. Fourth, the final report may influence future generations. The report may come to be seen as an important document in the nation’s history and thus referenced in research or schools. More immediately, the work of NGOs and/or the truth commission itself may make the report accessible to children of various ages and thus influence the thinking of future political agents.

Democratization and naming names

Because transitions to democracy and peace are often the result of ‘pacts’, or negotiated settlements in which authoritarian rulers step aside or warring parties cease fighting in exchange for immunity from prosecution, guilty parties do not always meet justice. Indeed, the cenarios in which trials for past abuses are most likely to occur are those of power asymmetries when one group has vanquished or thoroughly discredited its opponents (Mani, 2002; Nobles, 2010). When trials are not politically feasible, and full amnesty is not acceptable, truth commissions are often seen as a pragmatic ‘third way’ or ‘new variant’ solution that forgoes strict legal accountability but still attempts to reckon with the past (Boraine, 2000; de Lange, 2000). In such constrained circumstances, the ‘naming of names’ in the truth commission’s final report may act to individualize guilt.

An implicit or explicit aim of human rights trials is often to individualize guilt in order to lay a foundation for a future characterized by rule of law and accountability. By individualizing guilt, trials are thought to communicate the message that the entire society is not culpable for the period in question, which may remove blanket guilt on entire groups or nations. In theory, trials allow the polity to cleanse itself of its nastier elements and move forward by signaling a return to rule of law and intolerance of impunity.²

Of course truth commissions are not trials, but with regard to individual accountability are the former doomed to be a pale imitation of the latter? Certainly there is much to be said for the strict standards of legal accountability that accompany trials, but the naming of guilty parties in a truth commission may approximate the potential democratizing functions of trials in at least four ways. First, a truth commission can discredit those who might be destructive to democracy in the future. This mechanism links with Arendt’s argument about the stubbornness of brute facts – those named as perpetrators of human rights violations will always have to contend with the documentation that the truth commission has marshaled against them. This has the potential impact of effectively removing those opposed to the democratic transition from the political arena. Naming names may sideline potential spoilers of democratic governance and allow those committed to democracy to take center stage. Second, the naming of names may act to promote accountability even when more orthodox forms of legal accountability are unavailable. Those who are named may not suffer legal consequences, but may be socially marginalized because of their apparent guilt (Grodsky, 2009; Hayner, 2001). Third, provided that nobody is prosecuted in the broader transitional effort, the naming of names in a truth commission can still signal a form of equality before the law (Grodsky, 2009). It may send the message that those who were extraordinarily powerful under the previous regime are not able to escape new forms of justice. Fourth, the facts assembled in truth commission proceedings may be used in future trials. There is some precedent for this in Peru and Guatemala, but the looser evidentiary standards and investigation procedures of truth commissions may make prosecutors wary of using information generated by such processes (on Peru see Cueva, 2004; on Guatemala see Kemp, 2004: 84–90).

Data: Truth commissions and democracy

To assess the relationship between truth commission publicness and democratization, we adopt a quantitative approach. Although quantitative research designs have their limitations, such a strategy is appropriate here because we aim to understand the overarching associations between the process of truth production and its impact on democratization. We thus consciously sacrifice the rich contextual detail that in-depth case studies provide and instead paint with broader strokes. Recognizing the limitations of this approach, we nevertheless argue that the quantitative analysis can help scholars who adopt qualitative and/or theoretical approaches to transitional justice situate their work in a wider universe of cases. The next sections explain how the data were collected and analyzed, followed by the presentation and analysis of our results.

Truth commission publicness dataset (TCPD)

Consistent with our theoretical discussion, the Truth Commission Publicness Dataset (TCPD) gathers information on three aspects of truth commissions: public hearings, final reports, and the naming of perpetrators.³ Data on truth commissions were generated from five primary sources: Freeman’s (2006) and Hayner’s (2001) qualitative work on truth commissions, the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) archive of past truth commissions (USIP, 2010), Amnesty International reports (Amnesty, 2010), and the Beyond Intractability website (Brahm, 2010). This mixture of sources was selected because it allowed for consideration of both academic and practitioner perspectives, which helps ensure that relevant cases are not omitted.

From these sources, a list of 53 truth-seeking efforts from 1970 to 2009 was compiled. However because academic literature, NGO reports, and websites often operate using different definitions and assumptions, a common definition was imposed on these 53 cases in order to ensure uniformity and allow for triangulation of each case against the other sources. For this, we use Freeman’s (2006: 18) widely-accepted definition of truth commission:

An ad hoc, autonomous and victim-centered commission of inquiry set up in and authorized by a state for the primary purposes of (1) investigating and reporting on the principal causes and consequences of broad and relatively recent patterns of severe violence or repression that occurred in the state during the determinate periods of abusive rule or conflict, and (2) making recommendations for their redress and future prevention.

Using this definition, the list of 53 truth-seeking initiatives was narrowed down to 28 state-led truth commissions (Appendix 1). Although this reduced the number of observations that could be used in our analysis, it is theoretically important that each commission be held at the state level because democracy and democratization are intimately bound up with the modern state (Linz & Stepan, 1996).

The strength of the publicness of a truth commission was measured by a composite variable of the three categories of mechanisms elaborated above: public hearings, public report, and naming names. The composite score was calculated by adding each of the values for the three categories of mechanisms with a possible range of 0 to 3. Higher scores indicate stronger public truth initiatives. A truth commission with a public report, public hearings, and the naming of perpetrators, for example, would have a score of 3. A commission that had only two of these features would score 2, and so on.

Public hearings was coded 0 = no and 1 = yes if there were hearings which were open to the public. Public hearings could occur during initial consultation about the mandate of the commission (e.g. South Africa), selection of the commissioners (e.g. Liberia), and/or during the collection of testimonies (e.g. Sierra Leone). In each case included, the hearings appeared to represent a genuine attempt to engage victims and citizens in the construction of the nation’s truth, not a cynically-manipulated ‘truth’ process held to justify the ruling power or inspire fear among the wider populace (for analysis of the latter see Grodsky, 2007).⁴

The availability and dissemination of a final report was the second category coded in the dataset. A public report was assigned 0 = no if the report was never published, published but not officially released for popular consumption (e.g. Nigeria) or only in an extremely limited capacity (e.g. Haiti), or if the findings were never shared in any capacity (e.g. Bolivia). Those states that did make an official final report publicly and widely available were coded 1 = yes. Although unofficial versions of final reports may be made available by NGOs or leaked government sources in the absence of state dissemination, this does not signify state acknowledgement of the report. While the facts of such unofficial reports may be accurate, they are unlikely to have the same degree of credibility as a report which both civil society and the state acknowledge.

The third category of mechanisms, naming names, was coded 0 = no if the commission did not identify perpetrators and 1 = yes if the mandate allowed for individual accountability and published its findings in the final report. That is, if naming names or specific positions that were responsible occurred, this variable was coded as 1 (Freeman, 2006).

Democratization variables

The outcome variable of interest, democratization, was measured using the Polity IV database (Marshall, Jaggers & Gurr, 2011). This measure of democracy was used because of its focus on the quality of democratic institutions. Focusing on national governments, Polity scores represent the scope of authority, constraints on executive authority, and extent of political competition or participation, consistent with Dalh’s definition of democracy.⁵ Polity scores range from –10 to 10; negative scores represent authoritarianism and positive scores represent democratic regimes. Each country was initially assigned a democracy score over 6 years: the year the truth commission was initiated and for each of the following five years.⁶ The period of five years was selected to allow sufficient time for the mechanisms to take effect and to be close enough to minimize the number of other confounding factors.

Comparing multiple time points against each other within the same case allows us to measure change over time, which is at the core of democratization. Initial levels of democracy should be considered so that cases are evaluated on their own terms. Therefore, difference scores were calculated which allow us to measure within-case change. That is, positive democratization scores reflect a within-case increase in democracy five years after the truth commission. This change score was determined for all commissions that occurred prior to 2005, allowing for 5 years of complete democracy scores up to 2009. In addition to using a difference score as the dependent variable, the analyses account for prior levels of democracy, which have been increasing globally over the past four decades (Marshall & Cole, 2009). This design allows for observation of positive, flat, or negative slopes in democratization in a given state following a truth commission.

Results and discussion

This section will present the statistical analyses and discuss the significance. Due to the small number of cases, it will first present the data analytic plan which tests the assumptions of the model and provides information about statistical power and sample size. This stage of the analyses is more exploratory, prior to hypothesis testing. Next, the preliminary analyses provide descriptive characteristics and test the overall relationships among all variables in the model. Although tests of statistical power and preliminary analysis are less common in the peace and political science literatures, it is standard practice

Figure 1.

Loess plot of the relationship between democratization and strength of truth commission publicness

in other disciplines, including quantitative psychology and is, we believe, necessary to establish the robustness of our results (Cohen, 1992; Maxwell, 2000). Following the preliminary analyses, the model test of the hypothesis that a more public truth commission is related to democratic consolidation will be presented and discussed. The primary model test is supported by a number of alternative model tests and robustness checks.

Data analytic plan

To test if a linear model is appropriate for the data, a non-parametric loess smoother with a window of 60% was fitted to the data (Figure 1).⁷ In this graph, the size of the point represents the number of cases with those coordinates. Consistent with our general argument, a clear positive relationship was detected between public strength of the truth commission and democratization, or increase in democracy scores. The jagged appearance of the smoother function is due to the limited range of the predictor. This descriptive plot justifies the use of multiple regression, which assumes a linear relationship, for the primary model test.

Table I.

Means, standard deviations, ranges, and bivariate correlations for study variables

	Variable	N	Mean	SD	Range	1	2	3	4
1	Strength of publicness	28	1.71	1.12	0 to 3	–
2	Democratization following TC	25	0.07	2.27	−9 to 4	0.50**	–
3	Democracy, year TC initiated	27	5.60	4.83	−7 to 10	−0.27	−0.27	–
4	Per capita GDP, year TC initiated	28	2854.56	4374.07	83 to 20,566.25	−0.10	−0.04	0.37	–
5	Democratization prior to TC	25	4.73	6.30	−10 to 17	−0.29	−0.21	0.44**	−0.08

*p < .10, **p < .05, ***p < .01.

Given the limited number of cases, statistical power calculations were estimated to determine the number of predictors that could be entered simultaneously into the multiple regression test.⁸ In multiple regression with two predictors sample size planning calculates that to detect a small, medium, or large effect size with α = .05 and power of .80, samples should be 481, 67, and 30, respectively (Cohen, 1992). Given that the sample is only 28, estimation of statistical power suggests that the current analyses should be able to detect a large effect. According to Maxwell (2000), multiple regression with two predictors and a medium correlation between variables (r = .3) would require 141 cases to have sufficient statistical power of .80. This limitation of degrees of freedom suggests that only the key variables of theoretical interest should be tested in the current model.

Preliminary analyses

The means, standard deviations, and ranges of the data are presented along with the bivariate correlations for each variable in Table I. The only significant correlation was that strength of publicness positively correlated with democratization five years later (r = .50, p < .05).

Table II.

Test of the primary model of democratization

	Model 1	Model 2
Democracy, year TC initiated	−0.07 (0.09)	−0.08 (0.10)
Strength of publicness	0.99** (0.40)	1.05** (0.47)
Democratization prior to TC		0.01 (0.08)
N	24	22
R²	0.27**	0.28

Model 1 is the primary model test with the predictors of concurrent democracy and strength of publicness. Model 2 controls for change in democratization in the five years prior to the truth commission; the overall model is not significant. Unstandardized coefficients with standard errors in parentheses are reported.

*p < .10, **p < .05, ***p < .01.

Primary model test

To answer the research question about the relationship between truth and politics in transitional justice, a multiple regression test was conducted to determine how the publicness of a truth commission facilitated or constrained subsequent democratization. The two predictors were strength of publicness of each truth commission and democracy at the time the truth commission was initiated, which served as a control variable. By including the initial democracy rating in the model test, this statistically controls for differences between truth commissions established by more or less democratic states, and thus addresses concerns about endogeneity. The outcome variable was democratization, or the difference score between the Polity ratings at the initiation of the commission and five years later.

The overall model explains 27% of the variance in democratization (F(2,24) = 4.11, p < .05; Table II, Model 1). Controlling for the level of democracy at the initiation of the body of inquiry, stronger public truth commissions significantly predict higher levels of democracy five years later (unstandardized beta = .99, β = .46, p < .05). The positive relationship between publicness and improvements in democracy ratings over five years supports the hypothesis that a more public truth commission facilitates democratization. The unstandardized beta coefficient of .99 indicates that as levels of strength of the commission increase by one (for example, from public report to a public report and naming names), on average, the mean level of democratic change increases by almost as much, or one point, on the Polity scale. In other words, states sponsoring a commission with all three public mechanisms had scores, on average, about three points higher on Polity’s democracy index five years later than states with a commission lacking any public mechanisms, even after controlling for initial level of democracy. Public truth commissions can thus contribute to higher Polity scores, indicating greater constraint on the national government and more robust political competition, independent of the level of democracy at the time of the truth commission.

At least two objections may be raised about our parsimonious model. First, one could argue that the global trend toward democratization accounts for the increases in democracy that we find. While this may be true, our analyses show that, on average, countries that have more public truth commissions improve in democracy ratings more than countries with fewer public commissions. Second, one may object that our model is endogenous in that publicness and democracy levels are related. However, our analysis includes the initial Polity score as a covariate, meaning that the influence of initial democracy is controlled for.⁹ To further address this point we conducted follow-up analyses to test for possible confounding effects.¹⁰ Neither democracy at the time the truth commission was initiated nor change in democratization in the five years prior to the commission significantly predicted strength of publicness. In other words, our data suggest that the publicness of a truth commission can have an independent effect on democratization even when democracy at the initiation of the truth commission and democratic trends leading up to it are taken into account.

Alternative model tests

To evaluate the strength of the primary model, two alternative models were examined: testing each element of publicness as an individual predictor and controlling for trials and amnesty.

The primary model test demonstrates the utility and predictive power of conceptualizing strength of publicness as a scaled variable. However, to clarify how each component of publicness may function on its own, an alternative model was tested with each aspect of a truth commission as an independent predictor. When controlling for democracy at the time of initiation, both public report (β = .82, p < .001) and naming names (β = .28, p < .05) were significant individual predictors. Public hearings did not significantly predict democratization (β = –.04, ns); however, we caution against over interpreting this non-significant finding as only 14 cases had open proceedings. While the primary model is supported, this alternative test may be useful for policymakers who are weighing the costs and benefits of different aspects of public truth commissions given constraints in transitional societies.

Although the primary focus of this article is to examine the impact of different types of truth commissions in states that have opted to convene such an investigation, previous studies have also considered the impact of other transitional justice mechanisms in combination with truth commissions (Dukalskis, 2011; Grodsky, 2009; Olsen, Payne & Reiter, 2010; Snyder & Vinjamuri, 2003). Therefore, an alternative model was tested to examine the impact of amnesty and trials compared to the strength of publicness. Trials and amnesty were coded as dummy variables for each case; 0 = no if that mechanism was not present and 1 = yes if it was. Seventeen of the current cases included trials and ten included amnesties. When all three transitional justice mechanisms were tested simultaneously, only strength of publicness was a significant predictor of democratization (β = .42, p < .10), whereas trials and amnesty were not (trials: β = –.10, ns; amnesty: β = .15, ns). Two follow-up independent t-tests were conducted to compare democratization among countries with truth commissions that had or did not have trials or amnesties; neither test was significant (trials: t(1,21) = .80, ns; amnesty: t(1,22) = –1.27, ns). That is, a country that had a truth commission was not more or less likely to improve in democracy scores whether it convened trials or offered amnesty. The relationships among these alternative transitional justice mechanisms were further explored. There was no significant difference in strength of truth commission publicness between cases that did or did not have trials (t(1,23) = .33, ns; trials: M = 1.59, SD = 1.28; no trials: M = 1.75, SD = .71); truth commissions that co-occurred with amnesties (M = 2.10, SD = .99) were marginally stronger (t(1,24) = –1.87, p = .07) than those that did not (M = 1.31, SD = 1.08). Overall, these alternative model tests of other transitional justice mechanisms support the primary model findings that strength of publicness is significantly related to democratization.

Robustness checks

Three sets of robustness checks were tested controlling for per capita GDP, timing relative to the South African TRC, and democratization across a range of time periods. Given the number of studies that have interrogated the link between level of development and democracy,¹¹ a model controlling for per capita GDP was tested (World Development Indicators, 2010). GDP at the time the truth commission was initiated was uncorrelated with the other study variables. Including GDP, therefore, introduced more unexplained variance and worsened the overall model fit so that it was no longer significant (F(3,24) = 2.72, p = .07). However, the inclusion of GDP as a control did not alter the pattern of coefficients (per capita GDP: β = .09, ns; democracy, year TC initiated: β = –.18, ns; strength of publicness: β = .47, p < .05), and the individual link between strength of publicness and democratization, controlling for GDP and current democracy, was still significant.

South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is perhaps the best known and most studied transitional justice process (see e.g. Gibson, 2004, 2006; Backer, 2010; Moon, 2008; Wilson, 2001) and it is largely recognized as a robustly public process. A year-long consultation resulted in an open selection of commissioners, which helped shape the final mandate in South Africa. The media played an important role in disseminating public hearings and the final report contained specific names of perpetrators who had applied for amnesty. Although Gibson (2006) found that the TRC contributed to reconciliation, other studies question the long-term impact of the TRC on other social processes such as victims’ healing (Hamber, 2009) and attitudes toward transitional justice (Backer, 2010). Yet, as an emblematic case, even commissions that occurred before South Africa have been evaluated through the lens of the high level of public truth that was accomplished during the TRC (Moon, 2008). To assess the role of the South African TRC, a dummy code was assigned (0 = prior to 1995, 1 = 1996 to present); the South Africa case was coded as missing for this variable. When tested with strength of publicness, the South Africa variable did not predict democratization (Strength of publicness: β = .50, p < .05; South Africa: β = .06, ns). Moreover, an independent t-test indicated there was no significant difference (t(1,25) = –1.51, ns) between strength of commission prior to (M = 1.22, SD = .83) or following South Africa (M = 1.89, SD = 1.18). This set of robustness checks suggests that timing relative to South Africa does not have a significant impact on strength of the commission or subsequent democratization.

Finally, a robustness check examined the impact of a stronger public truth commission on democratization across a number of time periods. Of the cases included in the current tests, on average, truth commissions were operational for 2.4 years (SD = 1.5), and 93% of them were finished in 4 or fewer years.¹² Therefore, we tested the relationship between strength of publicness and democratization at four, five, and six years after the initiation of the commission, still controlling for Polity at the time of initiation. These periods were chosen to capture the possible impact of the commission during its operation, as well as the final result. Four years was the initial earliest period to give at least one year after the average duration of a commission; six years was the longest period to retain the maximum number of cases with complete Polity data. Across all time periods, strength of publicness was a significant predictor of democratization (Democratization + 4: β = .40, p < .05; Democratization + 6: β = .42, p < .05). This robustness test

Table III.

Test of alternative models and robustness checks predicting democratization

	Model 3	Model 4	Model 5	Model 6
Democracy, year TC initiated	−0.08* (0.04)	−0.07 (0.11)	−0.08 (−0.09)	−0.07 (0.10)
Public hearings	−0.18 (0.49)
Public report	8.91*** (1.06)
Naming names	1.36** (0.48)
Strength of publicness		0.92* (0.53)	0.99** (0.41)	0.98** (0.47)
Amnesty		0.71 (1.13)
Trials		−0.47 (1.11)
Per capita GDP, year TC initiated			0.00 (0.00)
South Africa				0.48 (0.96)
N	18	22	24	23
R²	0.88***	0.32	0.28*	0.29*

Model 3 tests the individual components of the primary model. Model 4 compares trials and amnesty along with truth commission strength. Model 5 tests the robustness of the primary model when controlling for per capita GDP; the overall model is not significant. Model 6 examines the impact of timing before and after South Africa. Unstandardized coefficients with standard errors in parentheses are reported.

*p < .10, **p < .05, ***p < .01.

Table IV.

Robustness checks predicting democratization

	Model 7	Model 8	Model 9
Democracy, year TC initiated	–0.07 (0.06)	–0.07 (0.09)	–0.16 (0.11)
Strength of publicness	0.55** (0.26)	0.99** (0.40)	0.96** (0.44)
N	25	24	22
R²	0.26**	0.27**	0.33**

Models 7 through 9 demonstrate the robustness of the pattern of results when democratization is measured four, five, and six years after the initiation of the commission, respectively. Unstandardized coefficients with standard errors in parentheses are reported.

*p < .10, **p < .05, ***p < .01.

highlights the strength of a more public truth commission process to influence later democratization across a range of time periods. Overall, the pattern of relationships between strength of public truth commission and democratization remains significant across the alternative model tests and robustness checks (summarized in Tables III and IV).

Conclusions

In this article we posited that the publicness of a truth commission – as measured by whether it had open proceedings, a widely available public report, and the ability to identify perpetrators of past violence – may contribute to democratization. Using a newly-constructed dataset, we found that truth commission publicness does indeed contribute to democratization of the state in which the commission is held, even when taking into account initial levels of democracy, democratic trends in the years prior to the commission, different cutoff points in years after the commission, per capita GDP, the presence of amnesties and/or trials, and the influence of the landmark South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Our findings suggest three primary implications. First, the results suggest that donors, policymakers and civil society leaders concerned with advancing democracy in a context where a truth commission is planned should advocate for a public, open process. This is a much more modest, but equally important claim, than the broader argument that truth commissions facilitate democracy. Instead of testing an argument about truth commission efficacy generally, we measured the impact of different types of truth commissions on subsequent democratization. Policymakers concerned with supporting democratization within a given country emerging from a period of widespread human rights abuse may advocate stronger truth commissions, with greater procedural openness, dissemination of the findings, and the ability to name names. Our findings about the impact of the publicness are particularly useful given the global increase in the use of truth commissions in recent years. Furthermore, with research showing that truth commissions and reparations may lead to economic benefits because of the costly commitments to stability that they represent for potential investors (Appel & Loyle, 2012), it is worth noting the possibility that increased publicness may also facilitate other desirable goals.

Second, our findings provide civil society with a potential hedge on political manipulation of truth commissions. While commissions are often constructed and guided by elite political interests, infusing them with publicness has the potential to mitigate some of the pernicious effects that result. This is important because previous research has shown that the relative power of elites in transitional contexts goes a long way toward explaining the types of mechanisms that are chosen, such as trials, amnesty, and/or truth commissions, among others (Nobles, 2010). Our research shows that even if civil society actors have little choice in which mechanism is chosen, once a truth commission is planned, these actors still have strategic options – albeit constrained – for advancing democratization. A public truth process, in other words, may help compensate for some of the dubious motivations that elites bring to the commission’s formation and work, constraining future political decisions and enhancing democratization. We intend for this to be a modest claim and do not pretend that this is the final word on avoiding disingenuous transitional justice institutions. Third, and of crucial importance, much more research must be done to arrive at solutions that balance the interests of the polity with those of the individual, particularly with regard to re-traumatization and mental health (Brouneus, 2008, 2010; Hamber, 2009; Mendeloff, 2004).

This study confirms the utility of disaggregating the work of truth commissions to consider what specific mechanisms or elements of these complex institutions can be reformed, refined or rejected. Further research should focus on testing and refining the statistical findings made here. It is crucial to bear in mind the strengths and weaknesses of a quantitative research design such as ours. While it provides a macro view of truth commissions across contexts and deals with broad trends over time, it sacrifices the rich detail of comparative case studies. Tracing the mechanisms that we establish in a deeper, qualitative fashion will help refine the argument and lead to more useful knowledge for those charged with designing, implementing, and/or monitoring truth commissions.

Footnotes

Replication data

The dataset, syntax, and output for the empirical analysis in this article can be found at .

Notes

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