Reconciliation is a critical part of the peacebuilding process and is intertwined with achieving justice, reducing violence, and conflict transformation.
[1] 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.
Reconciliation processes depend on interrelations among conflict, power, social identity, and collective memory/ narratives about history.
"[3] 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"[4] Reconciliation is also viewed as a process of building long-term peace between former enemies through bilateral initiatives and institutions across governments and societies.
[5] 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.
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.
From the point of view of many different disciplines and from the experience of practitioners, important studies of reconciliation processes have been presented.
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 of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation.
In Beer-Sheba, a more social-action related research line has been built by Daniel Bar-On and his successor Shifra Sagy[12]).
In Tel-Aviv and Herzliya, Daniel Bar-Tal, Arie Nadler[13] and younger scholars such as Eran Halperin[14] developed basic theories which opened the way to reconciliation studies.
[15] Arie Nadler from Tel Aviv University co-edited in 2008 the book The Social Psychology of Intergroup Reconciliation.
In his famous book The Ambivalence of the Sacred, Notre Dame University historian R. Scott Appleby, published a chapter titled "Reconciliation and the Politics of Forgiveness" (2000, pp. 167–206).
Already before, in 2003, a group of authors around the editors David Bloomfield, Teresa Barnes[17] and Luc Huyse had published a more praxis-oriented Handbook Reconciliation after Violent Conflicts.
Constantly growing, the Winchester University program has become a leading academic institution for the formation of practitioners in reconciliation in Europe.
A common research project was conducted in cooperation with Arie Nadler, Shifra Sagy from Israel and Mohammed Dajani from Wasatia[24] NGO in the Palestinian territories.
This approach concentrates on local agency and promotion of diverse voices in defining peace processes and leading societal transformation in societies affected by asymmetric and protracted conflicts.
After losing WWII and being responsible for the Holocaust, the Federal Republic of Germany as the legal successor of the German Empire was confronted with an almost total breakdown of its moral reputation.
From the 1950s on, German State representatives and important parts of the civil society adopted the approach of reconciliation in order to become trusted members of the international community again.
In addition to that interpretation and to analyses of speeches by German politicians, Gardner-Feldman discusses a list of factors which contributed in a different degree to the success of Germany's foreign policy of reconciliation: A favorable international context, EU integration, good relations between State leaders such as for example Adenauer and de Gaulle, confrontation with history, Civil Society engagement and religious leaders.
Studies on individual cases of German foreign policy of reconciliation deepened the level of analysis and confirmed or contested that view.
Daniel Marwecki in his dissertation (2020) argues that there was no reconciliation, but rather an alliance of interests which brought persons such as Adenauer and Ben Gourion together.
German state activities to formulate apologies in Martyr villages and supporting projects through a future fund and the German-Greek Youth organization are laudable and create better relationships but reconciliation research also showed that these efforts often failed to meet the expectations to receive reparations of the victims of the war crimes during the Nazi occupation.
Communities such as Corrymeela (established in 1965),[36] ecumenical women's groups are important contexts which inspired and enabled the negotiated settlement of the conflict.