Transitional Justice and Theory of Change

This volume critically assesses how, why, and under what conditions transitional justice (TJ) processes shape social, political, and ethical transformation in the post-Yugoslav region.

The book offers an evidence-based approach to TJ by placing Theory of Change (ToC) at its core. It conducts a longitudinal, multi-level, multi-method regional analysis that is practically non-existent in TJ literature, especially one using a unified analytical framework. Moving beyond the long-dominant binaries of ‘success’ versus ‘failure’, the book exposes the hidden assumptions guiding international and domestic interventions and reveals the fragmented, recursive, and deeply political nature of post-conflict change. Drawing on one of the world’s most extensive real-life ‘laboratories’ of post-conflict interventions, the post-Yugoslav region, the book exposes the limits of technocratic, box-ticking approaches and illuminates the lived realities, unintended consequences, and transformative potential of truth-seeking, trials, reparations, and memorialisation. Its original contribution lies in reframing justice as a continuum, not a one-off transition, and in foregrounding meaningfulness—change that resonates, empowers, and endures, to meaningfully support long-term justice in contexts of protracted transition.

This book will be of much interest to students of transitional justice, Balkan politics, human rights, law and International Relations.