The Salience of Symbolic and Material Elements of Transitional Justice in Peace Processes

This article uses a new data set of 72 peace processes worldwide to examine if material and symbolic aspects of transitional justice (TJ) are correlated with peace processes ending in full (comprehensive) peace agreements. Based on models of multivariate analysis, we found that symbolic elements-truth and reconciliation-are less salient in partial peace agreements but very salient in full agreements. When comparing material and symbolic elements of TJ and the ramifications of their integration into peace processes, we found that the symbolic elements of TJ-but not the material elements of TJ-correlate with peace processes that end in a full peace agreement. Based on these findings, we argue that, contrary to most theoretical literature, negotiating on issues of truth and reconciliation are not an obstacle to ending armed conflicts by achieving full peace agreements. Public Significance Statement Little attention has been paid to differentiating between types of TJ aspects and whether including them in a peace process may lead to different results. Findings demonstrate that issues of truth and reconciliation should not necessarily be pushed out of the peace negotiation phase.