Accountability Shock: Why Transitional Justice Prevents Criminal Wars in New Democracies

Accountability Shock presents the first systematic explanation of why some ’Third Wave’ democracies developed peacefully while others became the world’s most violent. The book demonstrates how robust transitional justice processes - combining truth commissions with prosecution of autocratic-era atrocities - prevent criminal violence in new democracies. By holding authoritarian specialists in violence accountable, new democracies can break state impunity, preventing them from becoming key actors in the production of large-scale criminal violence and reshaping the logic of state coercion in democracy. With in-depth analyses of six Latin American cases, the work illuminates why transitional justice is crucial for addressing state-criminal collusion in hybrid contexts. Forged out of a close collaboration between transitional justice scholars and practitioners, Accountability Shock strengthens existing connections while offering practical insights for countries still grappling with authoritarian legacies and violence.