Transitional Punishment: Moderating Legacies of Mass Atrocities?
A Case Study of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Czechia

When mass atrocities are over, societies strive to leave the violence behind and move on. However, legacies of mass violence remain present in individuals, their families and communities. They are being transmitted to post-atrocity generations, who have not directly experienced the violence (intergenerational transmission, IGT). The history of wars, genocide or repressions is one of the significant predictors of future violence. Existing scholarship on individual and community legacies of mass atrocities, however, is scattered across disciplines and atrocity situations. This fragmentation fundamentally limits our understanding of impacts of mass atrocities on future generations. In order to address legacies of mass atrocities, societies have been implementing various transitional justice mechanisms, including criminal trials or lustrations (transitional punishments, TP). TP aim not only to deal with the violent past, but, by doing that to craft a peaceful and prosperous future for the generations to come. Existing research on TP remains largely normative and aspirational. Only a very limited number of studies empirically assesses impacts of TP on those who experienced atrocities, and subsequent generations. Fundamentally, there is no scholarly exchange among these two streams of scholarship (IGT&TP) despite them both studying how dealing with the past shapes the future. Arguably, TP and IGT are intimately interrelated. TP shapes what legacies of mass atrocities are transmitted across generations, and how. Using mixed methods analysis, I will study what role TP play in IGT. Based on systematization and synthesis of IGT and TP scholarship, I will break new grounds by conceptually and empirically investigating TP as moderator in IGT. I will develop innovative survey and interview instruments, and generate unprecedented empirical data from two post-atrocity situations: Bosnia and Czechia. The findings will be crucial not only academically but also for post-conflict peacebuilding and transitional justice practices.