Truth Commissions and State Building is a collection of papers centred on the relationship between truth commissions and processes of civic inclusion, identity formation, institutional reform and nation-building following periods of past political violence, authoritarianism and mass atrocity. The book explores the ‘role of the truth commission as a mechanism for state-building in post-authoritarian and post-conflict transitional countries in Africa’ (17). This is a significant approach to conceptualising the relationship between transitional justice bodies and processes of forging a democratic society.

The book offers a comprehensive survey of the diverse uses of truth commissions, detailing their deployment in various locations and periods. The introductory chapter serves as a valuable primer, as it sets the terrain of the book by incorporating diverse examples of truth-seeking commissions, from the Canadian TRC (2008) – which documented the history of the Indian Residential School system – and the impact on indigenous communities, and the South Korean Truth Commission. It also, helpfully, signals burgeoning discussions in well-established democracies – like Australia, New Zealand and the United States – concerning the possibility of holding truth commission-like bodies to investigate violent colonial histories and the enduring socio-economic impacts on indigenous populations.

The contention regarding truth commissions as enablers of civic engagement and political involvement, thereby bolstering the process of democratic state-building, offers a valuable framework for evaluating the efficacy of truth commissions across diverse settings. In chapter one, Wallace and Ibhawoh reference studies that correlate the public engagement aspect of formal truth commissions with the promotion of rule of law, human rights and the advancement of democracy. However, they also caution against assuming universal outcomes, highlighting instances where participation fails to yield substantive justice or equitable redistribution outcomes (49). Implicit in their argument is the recognition that the positive outcomes associated with ‘state-building’ and nation-building are subject to the specific dynamics of each case under consideration.

Several chapters in the book offer thematic insights into truth commissions’ mandates and impacts, serving as conceptual frameworks for scholars. Sikulibo's paper (58–74) stresses the necessity for truth commissions to address sexual violations through a gendered lens, given their common use as tools of war. Okafor and Ngweba's chapter on ‘African Human Rights and Transitional Justice’ provides a comprehensive review of the incorporation of transitional justice frameworks into African Union policies, emphasizing the significance of socio-economic rights and the ‘right to development’ within transitional justice contexts. The authors caution that despite progressive legal frameworks, positive outcomes hinge on contextual factors and their implementation within specific jurisdictions.

Bawa's chapter ‘Decolonization, gender, and transitional justice’ provides a reflection on some discourses (rather than a ‘critical discourse analysis’ as the author sets out to do) surrounding gender, violence and redress through the approach to TRC's engagement with Winnie Mandela. It proposes that Winnie Mandela's treatment signals a need to ‘decolonize gender politics’ in postcolonial and post-independent states (115). What the chapter suffers from, however, is the tendency to burden the TRC – which was a commission of inquiry with only the powers to make recommendations and not implement findings – with the incomplete process of national liberation. I am often perplexed to read assessments of the TRC in which there is no citation of the report itself. Statements like ‘The focus on Winnie successfully diverted focus from holding the apartheid state accountable for its untold horrors’ (p. 100) is simply not valid considering the extensive ambit of the TRC's findings of individual and institutional responsibility.

Other contributions offer clear insights into complex issues covering an array of case examples. Southall highlights the practical complexities in pursuing criminal trials for former apartheid political figures and security personnel owing to the demands of due process in the legal system accompanied by limited resources following the conclusion of the TRC process. Yusuf, in ‘Lessons from Nigeria’ features the problems associated with the ‘judicialisation of politics’ as the judiciary and appellate courts have become saddled with ‘political cases’ (226–8). This is compounded by issues of judicial corruption, where Yusuf notes how this erodes public confidence when accountability is not seen.

Ugor's analysis on the narrative role of truth commissions was equally compelling, drawing on literary theory and cultural studies to conceptualise the TRC as a public performance of storytelling, making the connection between the ritual of public narrative strategies and nation-building. Here, the literature on generic commissions of inquiry would have been instrumental in elucidating the point of official commissions as operating to fashion an ‘official discourse’ on a social problem, where Ashforth's (Reference Ashforth1990) work on commissions on the ‘Native Question’ in South Africa theorises them as ‘Theatres of power’ and ‘symbolic rituals’. Within this literature on official ‘State inquiries’ (to use Ashforth's terminology) the connection between fact-finding commissions on the ‘native question’ and the construction of the colonial state is convincingly elucidated (Ashforth Reference Ashforth1990).

Overall, the book would have benefitted from a clearer conceptualisation of the term ‘state-building’, as the term appears to be used interchangeably with ‘nation-building’ on several occasions.Footnote ¹ Nonetheless, what is valuable about this book is its contemporary eye on innovations made in truth commission experiments in recent years, adapted to local needs and perhaps responding to lessons learnt from criticisms of truth commissions that came before. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the field of transitional justice, as well as the issues related to justice and truth-seeking following periods of political violence. Much in the way that Priscilla Hayner's religiously-cited texts on truth commissions offered a broad view of the heterogeneity of the truth commission model from the perspective of the mid-90s to early 2000s and the associated debates related to the truth versus justice tradeoffs (Hayner Reference Hayner1994, Reference Hayner2002), this contemporary collection provides a clear window into the fascinating ways these institutions have been appropriated to suit vastly distinctive settings, political settlements and agendas.