Citizens’ Views on Amnesties, Truth Commissions, and Intergroup Forgiveness

This chapter summarizes research examining the opinions of citizens impacted by political struggle regarding (a) the granting of political amnesties to former perpetrators of violence by amnesty committees, (b) Truth Commissions, and (c) the meaning and feasibility of intergroup forgiveness processes. Results observed across the reviewed studies are largely consistent. Specifically, citizens’ views converged concerning (a) the conditions under which political amnesties can be considered justified (e.g., applicants must acknowledge that their past conduct was wrong), (b) tasks of Truth Commissions beyond the granting of amnesties (e.g., promote reconciliation between former opponents and opposition groups), and (c) the psychological foundations of political amnesties and Truth Commissions (e.g., intergroup forgiveness must be a democratic process). Given that contexts may differ across countries and given that citizens may have different views on the components of amnesty, Truth Commissions, and intergroup forgiveness, it is prudent, before launching such processes, to conduct local investigations. This chapter describes validated tools for these investigations and discusses the limited available evidence in favor of politicians continuing to consider only top-down processes when launching such political procedures.