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Paper short abstract

Does failed justice fuel new violence? This study quantifies how poor transitional justice (TJ) creates a culture of impunity, leading post-conflict states to violently repress nonviolent movements. I'll explain this using the FE Regression model, where my DV: state repression, and IV: TJ Quality.

Paper long abstract

Recently, countries including Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Indonesia, Serbia, etc., experienced youth uprisings, often referred to as Generation Z (Gen-Z) protests. The level of human rights abuse inflicted during these protests varies significantly. For instance, Bangladesh recorded approximately 1,400 casualties, while Nepal had 76, yet others reported very few or no casualties at all. Why do some states exhibit such brutality, whereas others do not? Does the prospect of future (criminal) accountability not deter state actors from committing human rights abuses? Some of these countries have experienced violent conflict in the past and have implemented transitional justice mechanisms to deal with the legacies of their violence. Is there a correlation between the robustness of transitional justice and the level of violent repression?

I hypothesize that post-conflict countries with lower "Transitional Justice Quality" scores demonstrate significantly higher levels of violent repression against nonviolent protesters.

To investigate this, I will examine post-conflict countries with transitional justice mechanisms in place. I will assess their Transitional Justice Quality using the Transitional Justice Database (TJDB) and evaluate the level of repression or crackdowns using the Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes (NAVCO) dataset. The study period spans from 1990 to 2025. I plan to use the Fixed Effects Regression (FE) method, controlling for the variables such as GDP per capita (from the World Bank data), level of democracy (Polity V data), and history of conflict (ACLED or UCDP data).