Reconciliation without Forgiveness: The EU in Promoting Postwar Cooperation in Serbia and Kosovo

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Unraveling the role of forgiveness in family relationships

Testing the idea that the process of forgiveness is intrinsically different across diverse relationships, this study examined the role of forgiveness in different family relationships. In 2 laboratory sessions 1 year apart, 114 families (each including 2 parents and 1 child) completed a new measure of family forgiveness and many individual-level, relationship-level, and family-level variables that have been previously linked with forgiveness. After validating the measure of family forgiveness in cross-sectional analyses, investigators performed longitudinal analyses to examine the role of forgiveness in each family relationship over the 1-year interval. Results indicated many important positive consequences of forgiveness on individual traits, aspects of each family relationship, and general family environment. However, there were also important asymmetries in associates of forgiveness across parent-child and parent-parent relationships, demonstrating the relationship-bound nature of forgiveness.

The Role of Forgiveness in Adult Learning and Education

Adverse experiences can initiate angry and negative emotions and if not addressed and resolved have the ability to impede learning. Forgiveness counseling gives learners and educators a way to extinguish the power of these hindering emotions and thereby enhance learning.

Restorative Justice and Political Forgiveness: A Comparative Study of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions

This research project involves a comparative, cross-national study of truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) in countries around the world that have used these extra-judicial institutions to pursue justice and promote national reconciliation during periods of democratic transition or following a civil conflict marked by intense violence and severe human rights abuses. An important objective of truth and reconciliation commissions involves instituting measures to address serious human rights abuses that have occurred as a result of discrimination, ethnocentrism and racism. In recent years, rather than solely utilizing traditional methods of conflict resolution and criminal prosecution, transitional governments have established truth and reconciliation commissions as part of efforts to foster psychological, social and political healing.

The primary objective of this research project is to determine why there has been a proliferation of truth and reconciliation commissions around the world in recent decades, and assess whether the perceived effectiveness of these commissions is real and substantial. In this work, using a multi-method approach that involves quantitative and qualitative analysis, I consider the institutional design and structural composition of truth and reconciliation commissions, as well as the roles that these commissions play in the democratic transformation of nations with a history of civil conflict and human rights violations.

In addition to a focus on institutional design of truth and reconciliation commissions, I use a group identity framework that is grounded in social identity theory to examine the historical background and sociopolitical context in which truth commissions have been adopted in countries around the world. This group identity framework serves as an invaluable lens through which questions related to truth and reconciliation commissions and other transitional justice mechanisms can be explored. I also present a unique theoretical framework, the reconciliatory democratization paradigm, that is especially useful for examining the complex interactions between the various political elements that directly affect the processes of democratic consolidation and reconciliation in countries in which truth and reconciliation commissions have been established. Finally, I tackle the question of whether successor regimes that institute truth and reconciliation commissions can effectively address the human rights violations that occurred in the past, and prevent the recurrence of these abuses.

Crisis communication in politics: forgiveness as image restoration tool

Crisis communication is a widely treated field. There are lot of works and guides which provide helpful information in order to face crisis situations successfully (Alcat, 2005, Benoit, 1997) and articles about case studies (Nespereira, 2014, Blaney y Benoit 2001). Nonetheless, most of times, these guides are focused on business or corporations (Abeler, 2010) and there are not such information about crisis communications in politics (Gaspar e Ibeas, 2015). The field is smaller if we speak about forgiveness as restoration image tool in politics (Harris 2006). Despite all, we live in “forgiveness era” as Krauze said (1998) where people demand to politicians to apologize when they have mistakes (Harris et al. 2006:716). So, we will try to make an approach to forgiveness in politics as a image restoration tool and analyze its capabilities in order to face crisis management.

Investigating the Mediator role of Social Safeness on the Relationship between Forgiveness and Life Satisfaction

The aim of the present study is to examine the mediating effect of social safeness on the relationship between forgiveness and life satisfaction. Participants were 311 university students who completed a questionnaire package that included the Trait Forgiveness Scale, the Social Safeness and Pleasure Scale, and the Life Satisfaction Scale. According to the results, social safeness and life satisfaction were predicted positively by forgiveness. On the other hand, life satisfaction was predicted positively by social safeness. In addition, social safeness mediated on the relationship between forgiveness and life satisfaction. The results were discussed in the light of the related literature and dependent recommendations to the area were given.

Developing ethical identities in young offenders through restorative justice practice in Australia

Restorative justice is firmly established in Australian juvenile justice. While the official language used to describe restorative initiatives varies across states and territories, the most common form is a meeting or conference between young offenders and their victims (most commonly known as a family group or youth justice conference). During the past decade, an impressive amount of empirical research has examined how the restorative justice process affects offenders, victims and other participants (such as supporters for young offenders and victims). Results from this line of research are remarkably consistent and show that participants generally regard restorative conferences as procedurally fair and that they are satisfied with the outcomes (eg what young offenders agree to do to make up for their offending behaviour, such as offer a sincere apology or perform work for the victim or the community). What is less common, however, is the perception among participants that restorative conferences achieve the key aim of restoration.By ‘restoration’ we refer to encounters where ‘offenders apologise, their apologies are accepted, victims offer forgiveness,and conferences conclude with a feeling of mutual good will’.

Emotions, crime and justice [Onati International Series in Law and Society, Number 1]

The return of emotions to debates about crime and criminal justice has been a striking development of recent decades across many jurisdictions. This has been registered in the return of shame to justice procedures, a heightened focus on victims and their emotional needs, fear of crime as a major preoccupation of citizens and politicians, and highly emotionalised public discourses on crime and justice. But how can we best make sense of these developments? Do we need to create "emotionally intelligent" justice systems, or are we messing recklessly with the rational foundations of liberal criminal justice? This volume brings together leading criminologists and sociologists from across the world in a much needed conversation about how to re-calibrate reason and emotion in crime and justice today. The contributions range from the micro-analysis of emotions in violent encounters to the paradoxes and tensions that arise from the emotionalisation of criminal justice in the public sphere. They explore the emotional labour of workers in police and penal institutions, the justice experiences of victims and offenders, and the role of vengeance, forgiveness and regret in the aftermath of violence and conflict resolution. The result is a set of original essays which offer a fresh and timely perspective on problems of crime and justice in contemporary liberal democracies.

Communicating personal amnesty : a dismodernist approach to arts intersections between disability, personal stories and well-being

This thesis investigates the role of narrative devices in the process of improving an individual’s psychological and physiological experience of health and well-being using two methods of inquiry: a theoretical research project and a comparative analysis of two case studies. Through these two approaches the research examines how the health status of people experiencing disability can be re-positioned and re-designed to develop creative, narrative-based approaches to strengthen communication between the mainstream community and those marginalised by pathological, social and biological illness-centric policy. The theoretical section of the thesis examines two different, but complementary bodies of research: health and well-being, and narrative reconstruction. By invoking Antonovksy’s (1985a) theory of salutogenesis and Davis’s (2002) theory of dismodernism, the study examines the role of language and narrative in the defining of health in social, pathological and ableist spheres. The research positions health and well-being as disparate from historical and contemporary readings of illness and disability and presents literature to support the potential to improve health well-being through a creative re-narration of the experience of disability. The research examines the theoretical concepts of resilience, autonomy and social inclusion through a detailed examination of narratology and the amnesty narrative. The study links these theoretical approaches to a practical Arts-Health intersection program developed for the research project called Communicating Personal Amnesty. Through a comparative analysis of a Pilot Study and Major Case study, the research presents findings derived from theory-building participatory action research showing the efficacy of the program. The research provides a detailed analysis of key narrative structures through a variety of experimental methodological approaches to encourage an important dialogue between the creative components of the thesis and the more traditional health-based academic critique. The research is an example of emergent translational health methodologies, in disability studies.

Cultural inhibitors to hearing the voices of child sexual abuse by church personnel

It is increasingly recognised that Christian Churches and their Institutions have historically been sites where the voices of survivors of child sexual abuse (csa) by Church personnel have not been effectively heard. This paper draws on data from a research project which sought the voices of Church Leaders who were identified as being pro-active in addressing csa within their individual denominations. From this research several key inhibitors to hearing survivor’s voices, within Churches of Australia, were identified. These key inhibitors include the culture of Churches themselves, gendered ideologies, constructions of leadership and the deployment of forgiveness. The identification of such factors creates space to learn more effective strategies for hearing the voices of survivors both within Churches and their organisations and externally. This paper goes beyond considering these factors to report on a collaborative project initiated, between Survivors Australia and Dr Death. This project specifically targets the voices of Australian Survivors of csa by Church leaders. It is hoped that this project will not only achieve the primary objective of hearing and valuing the voices of survivors of csa by Church leaders, but will also provide impetus for the creation of alternative ways of managing complaints of csa by Church leaders in Australia. Such complaints processes will be increasingly survivor focussed and include the creation of spaces where the voices of survivors are valued.