Reconciliation as Politics: A Concept and Its Practice

by Kjell-Ake Nordquist

Is "political reconciliation" a new tool for peace-building and justice--in peace processes and other complex social reconstruction efforts-after dictatorship or civil wars? Or is it just another term for established practices like negotiation, conflict resolution, and cooperation? Reconciliation processes after conflict and war can be very different in form and content. Kjell-Ake Nordquist analyzes the concept of reconciliation from a political perspective and outlines an understanding of its characteristics in a comparison with its closest "conceptual relatives": forgiveness and conflict resolution. In addition, Nordquist specifically addresses the structural dimensions of reconciliation, and formulates an understanding of reconciliation that identifies a specific contribution to the settlement of political conflicts. In this way, political reconciliation has the potential to be an approach that, along with other activities, contributes to more complete and genuine peace processes.

ebook

Published March 14, 2017

Reviews

[Joseph Sverker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and one of my first book within the area of conflict solutions. I think Nordquist makes a strong point for why reconciliation can work and be an important concept in conflict solution between groups. He is often coming back to a distinction between reconciliation and forgiveness where forgiveness is individual and reconciliation can be communal. Therefore forgiveness is not possible have as a goal in conflicts between groups, but to aim for reconciliation can be a goal. I would want to explore that further because I think that can be theoretical resources for conflict solution also in the idea of forgiveness, but in that case it has to be seen as "personal" and not "individual". But that might be a book in itself rather than a review.