The impact of thin and thick truth: the limits of truth commission design in polarized societies
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- dc.contributor.author Daniels, Lesley-Ann
- dc.contributor.author Zalunardo, Virginia
- dc.date.accessioned 2024-09-02T09:53:37Z
- dc.date.available 2024-09-02T09:53:37Z
- dc.date.issued 2024
- dc.description.abstract Dealing with the legacy of the past has become a popular demand in postconflict and posttransition countries. However, the pursuit of truth can be a divisive issue that threatens rather than promotes understanding, particularly in divided societies. Would a minimalist truth satisfy the victim-centered right to know, without disturbing delicate balances in society? This article theorizes how different designs of truth commissions impact social outcomes, contrasting two ideal types: thin truth, which gives solely individual factual knowledge, and thick truth, which produces a public report and searches for a pattern of events. We look at the case of Spain, which long used a “policy of forgetting” to deal with the crimes of the Civil War and Franco dictatorship and where the politics of memory has become a partisan issue, and embed experimental treatments into a representative survey conducted in 2021. Our findings show that restricting truth brings no advantages, as the different designs have no significant impact on the highly polarized reactions. The research has implications for policy by showing how different truth commission formats (fail to) impact on reconciliation.
- dc.description.sponsorship Lesley-Ann Daniels acknowledges financial support from the European Commission through grant H2020-MSCA-IF-2020.101027912.MICROPOLPAX.
- dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
- dc.identifier.citation Daniels LA, Zalunardo V. The impact of thin and thick truth: the limits of truth commission design in polarized societies. J Hum Rights. 2024;23(3):213-30. DOI: 10.1080/14754835.2024.2354170
- dc.identifier.doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14754835.2024.2354170
- dc.identifier.issn 1475-4835
- dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/10230/60977
- dc.language.iso eng
- dc.publisher Taylor & Francis
- dc.relation.ispartof Journal of Human Rights. 2024;23(3):213-30
- dc.relation.projectID info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/101027912
- dc.rights © 2024 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
- dc.rights.accessRights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
- dc.rights.uri http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
- dc.subject.other Comissions de la veritat -- Espanya
- dc.title The impact of thin and thick truth: the limits of truth commission design in polarized societies
- dc.type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
- dc.type.version info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion