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Since about the 2010th Reconciliation Studies are a new scientific approach in the field of Peace and Conflict Studies. They have commonalities with Peacebuilding, Conflict Transformation, and Transitional Justice research, and to a lesser extend with academic work on Peace Psychology, Conflict resolution, Conflict management, Mediation, Security Studies, Memory Studies, and trauma and resilience studies.

Definition of Reconciliation Studies

Reconciliation is a critical part of the peacebuilding process and is intertwined with achieving justice, reducing violence, and conflict transformation. Discussions are still ongoing whether reconciliation is a process, an outcome, an ideal and perhaps utopian goal, or a specific stage or moment in the process of overcoming violent conflict. However, there is a certain tendency to see reconciliation as an overarching concept for the long-term process to create better relationships after violence. Many scholars and practitioners also stress the importance of reconciliation efforts for the cessation of violence in the middle of conflict. Reconciliation researcher Martin Leiner defines reconciliation studies as the “scholarly description, interpretation and evaluation of processes to develop ‘normal’ and if possible ‘good’ relationships between states, groups, organizations, and individuals reacting against past, present or preventing future grave incidents such as Wars, Civil Wars, Genocides, Atrocities, Forced Displacement, Enslavement, Dictatorship, Oppression, Colonialism, Apartheid, and other Human Rights Violations and injustices, and creating a scientific discourse of developing a common future to enable the transformation of conflicts towards the path of peace.” Stressing the main goal of reconciliation as improved intergroup relations and the building or rebuilding of trust, Professor Karina V. Korostelina define reconciliation as “a process of management of social identities and reckoning with the past. Reconciliation processes depend on interrelations among conflict, power, social identity, and collective memory/ narratives about history.” According to the Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy political reconciliation includes the following practices: “Apologies, Memorials, Truth Telling, Amnesties, Trials and Punishment, Lustration, Reparations, Forgiveness and Participation in Deliberative Processes” Reconciliation is also viewed as a process of building long-term peace between former enemies through bilateral initiatives and institutions across governments and societies. Other scholars would add at least trauma therapies, encounter programs, and the construction of a common human security structure in order to achieve no repetition.

Within this field, Reconciliation Studies are characterized by four guiding assumptions:

• Relationship. Reconciliation Studies are focusing on the question how trustful and cooperative relationships can be (re)built in the face of grave incidents of violence. This implies a closeness of Reconciliation Studies to philosophical and scientific anthropologies of humans as relational animals (Hegel 1807, Buber 1923, Rosa 2012, Fuchs 2007, du Toit 2017). This focus on relationships has also practical consequences. For many reconciliation scholars their field also includes the study of the distortions of relationships before grave incidents are happening. The social construction of enemies, pathologies of communication connected with imaginaries of the other (Kearney 2003), frames for war, missed reconciliation in the initial moments of conflict, certain long-term structural realities of discrimination such as Apartheid, racism, islamophobia, antisemitism, antiziganism, ableism, xenophobia, classism, patriarchate, colonialism, slavery, and different cultural habits of dehumanization and exploitation often indicate needs and possibilities for reconciliation in order to create better relationships before violent incidents occur.

• Intergroup and Identity Dynamics. Reconciliation not only creates a foundation for peaceful coexistence but also promotes cooperation between conflicting parties based on the management of social identities and addressing a contentious past. It requires reduction of intergroup threat, relative deprivation, and addressing trauma. It also involves the dissolution of rigid social boundaries and the formation of common and cross-cutting identities; these identities then act as a foundation for stable and peaceful coexistence building on the respect and trust between former enemies. Thus, reconciliation processes are deeply rooted in interconnections between conflict, power, social identity, and collective memory.

• Inclusiveness. Reconciliation Studies often assume that all parties involved in a distortion of relationship must be integrated in the process of reconciliation and that multiple kinds of processes of reconciliation (such as reconciliation with oneself, with the own group and with others) are intertwined and are happening simultaneously. Reconciliation Studies try to overcome limited concepts of reconciliation such as working only on individual I-Thou-relationships between persons or only working in so called “post-conflict settings”.

• Transdisciplinary. The factors why reconciliation succeeds or fails are so multiple and complex that transdisciplinary research including a wide range of disciplines is required.

• Scientific ambition. An important group of Reconciliation scholars, between them the group that founded the International Association for Reconciliation Studies (IARS), aims at the goal to lift Reconciliation Studies from the self-reflection of practitioners to a high-level scientific field.

Historical Background

It is important to distinguish between: (1) the history of reconciliation, (2) the history of the notion “Reconciliation”, (3) the history of Studies on Reconciliation and (4) the history of Reconciliation Studies.

History of reconciliation

Practices of reconciliation are indispensable for the survival of human communities, because without restoration of relationships after grave incidents - which always happen - community is put into question. These practices can be traced back to animal behavior (de Waal 1989) and have been documented in every so far described human society. They are most salient in intimate relationships, in inter- and intragroup relationships, in religion and in ethics, but also touch other fields of life.

History of the notion ‘Reconciliation’

The history of the notion of ‘Reconciliation’ and its translations into other languages is still to be written. It can be found in ancient Greek comedy (Aristophanes, Lysistrata, performed 411 BC) with reference to peacemaking in the war between Athens and Sparta, in Apostle Paul’s writings (2. Cor 5, 11-21), in legal and economic contexts such as accounting, as a key idea in the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel (cf. Rosza 2005). In the 20th century, Reconciliation became an often used - and misused - political term. Between others it was misused to legitimize the collaboration with the Nazi occupation in France and to legitimize amnesties for former dictators, but it was also used in a better way as guiding notion for several peace-making initiatives (cf. the NGOs: International Fellowship of Reconciliation, Action Reconciliation Service for Peace), for West Germanys‘ policy of reconciliation after World War II and for the reconciliation processes which took place since the 1990ies in South Africa, Rwanda, Northern Ireland and other countries.

History of Scientific Studies about reconciliation

From the 1990ies on, academic interest in reconciliation started to get traction. From the point of view of many different disciplines and from the experience of practitioners, important studies of reconciliation processes have been presented. The first push for reconciliation as a research topic came from practical work in the field. Based on his experience of the war in former Yugoslavia, theologian and later professor at Yale, Miroslav Volf published in 1996 Exclusion and Embrace. A Theological Exploration in Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation. A year later, the German-Canadian scholar Gregory Baum together with Harold Wells edited the first edition of his book The Reconciliation of People: Challenge to the Churches (1997) promoting the study of reconciliation in both Catholic theology and the WCC. Scholar-practitioner John Paul Lederach published a book in 1998 entitled: Building Peace. Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies and The Journey towards Reconciliation in 1999. With both books, Lederach was probably the first often read author who focused on reconciliation. At the same time, scientific studies from different disciplines such as Theology, Sociology, Rhetorics, Religious Studies, Law and Psychology came out on the procedures and the contexts of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Most importantly, as an outcome of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission the first research institute on reconciliation was established in Cape Town in 2000: The Institute for Justice and Reconciliation. Almost in parallel with the research born out of the relative success of the South African reconciliation process, in Israel, out of the desire to reconcile Israelis and Palestinians and of the difficulties in implementing the Oslo Agreements, another important research in reconciliation started. It was mainly carried out by social psychologists. In Beer-Sheba, a more social-action related research line has been built by Daniel Bar-On and his successor Shifra Sagy). In Tel-Aviv and Herzliya, Daniel Bar-Tal, Arie Nadler and younger scholars such as Eran Halperin developed basic theories which opened the way to Reconciliation Studies. The volume From Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation (2004) with mainly Israeli and American authors marks a breakthrough of studies on reconciliation, even if the main argument of Bar-Tal in favor of reconciliation is pronounced more clearly nine years later in his book published Intractable Conflicts. Socio-Psychological Foundation and Dynamics (2013). The main argument is: Many conflicts are intractable. Intractable conflicts have a socio-emotional infrastructure which makes traditional Conflict Resolution through diplomacy and treaties to fail because too many strong actors in the society or even entire populations are too much into strong emotions of hatred, mistrust and willingness to impose one’s own vision that only a change made by reconciliation can make an intractable conflict tractable. As Israeli-Palestinian-Conflict or Cyprus Conflict are intractable conflicts, there will be no peace without reconciliation. Arie Nadler from Tel Aviv University co-edited in 2008 the book The Social Psychology of Intergroup Reconciliation. He is as well the creator of a needs-based model of reconciliation, explaining why reconciliation is successful: it is fulfilling the needs of those in the victim position (acknowledgement, agency, apologies, justice, reparation, …) as well as the needs of the perpetrators (to be part of moral community again and the have a second chance,…). Around the year 2000, in the USA several studies were published on the role of religions in conflict and in reconciliation. In his famous book The Ambivalence of the Sacred, Notre Dame University Historian R.Scott Appleby, integrated a chapter about Reconciliation and the Politics of Forgiveness (2000, pp. 167-206). In a similar way, Marc Gopin developed religious reconciliation in his book Holy War, Holy Peace (2002, p.195-197). Together with South Africa and Israel, the USA became one of the countries where reconciliation was most studied. Notre Dame based political scientist Daniel Philpott (2006) described the way to reconciliation integrating reconciliation in a liberal-democratic peacemaking framework. Already before, in 2003, a group of authors around the editors David Bloomfield, Teresa Barnes and Luc Huyse had published a more praxis-oriented Handbook Reconciliation after Violent Conflicts. Ireland, the UK and the USA were leading in the development of MA-programs on reconciliation. Based on the experiences of reconciliation in Northern Ireland, a first MA study program on Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation was founded in Belfast and Dublin/Trinity College and with different thematic focus at the University of Maine in USA. At Winchester University, starting in 2010 the Center for Religion, Reconciliation, and Peace has been founded. In cooperation with the St. Ethelburga’s Center for Reconciliation and Peace a MA program in “Reconciliation and Peacebuilding” with the aim of bringing together scientific rigor and practical experience has been built. Constantly growing, Winchester university program has become a leading academic institution for the formation of practitioners in reconciliation in Europe.

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1. Fläming, Susan and Martin Leiner. (2012). “Reconciliation in the Middle of Dispute.” Essay. In Latin America between Conflict and Reconciliation, 7–19. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; Korostelina, K.V. (2018). Reconciliation in Ukraine: within and across the boundary. In Gardner L. (ed). Societies in Transition. The Former Soviet Union and East Central Europe between Conflict and Reconciliation, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht , pp.105-130
2. Al Dajani, Iyad/Leiner, Martin (eds. (2024)), Reconciliation, Conflict Transformation and Peace Studies, Cham: Springer.
3. Korostelina, K.V. (2018). Reconciliation in Ukraine: within and across the boundary. In Gardner L. (ed). Societies in Transition. The Former Soviet Union and East Central Europe between Conflict and Reconciliation, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht , pp.105-130
4. Gardner Feldman, L. (2014). Germany's Foreign Policy of Reconciliation: From Enmity to Amity. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers; Korostelina, K.V. and S. Lassig (2013). History Education and Post-Conflict Reconciliation: Reconsidering Joint Textbook Projects. Routledge
5. Korostelina, K.V. (2024). Memory sites and dynamics of conflict: collective memory, identity, and power. Routledge; Korostelina, K.V. & Benedicto, K. (2020). Understanding reconciliation in Nagorno- Karabakh conflict in the Leiner’s framework of reconciliation practices, In Reconciliation, Ethics, Religion, Francesco Ferrari, Davide Tacchini, Binyamin Gurstein (eds.), Festschrift, pp. 83-118
6. Lederach, J. P. (1997). Building peace: Sustainable reconciliation in divided societies. United States Institute of Peace Press; Kriesberg, Louis (2001) Mediation and the Transformation of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Journal of Peace Research 38 (3): 373–392
7. Boraine, Alex (2000) A Country unmasked. Inside South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Comission. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19571805-4; Du Toit, Fanie (ed.) (2003), Learning to live together. Practices of social reconciliation. Cape Town: Institute for Justice and Reconciliation; Gobodo-Madikizela, Pumla (2004) A Human Being Died That Night. A South African Woman Confronts the Legacy of Apartheid. Boston: Mariner Books: ‎ ASIN: B00XWXRE5Q; Wüstenberg, Ralf K. (2004), Die politische Dimension der Versöhnung. Eine theologische Studie zum Umgang mit Schuld nach den Systemumbrüchen in Südafrika und Deutschland. Gütersloh: Christian Kaiser/Gütersloher Verlagshaus ISBN 10- 357-905418-X
8. George Mason based Conflict resolution expert Christopher Mitchell acknowledged the need for reconciliation in his book The nature of intractable conflicts. Resolution in the twenty-first century (2014, pp. 268-291)