Social Mobilization for Memorials as Forms of Symbolic Reparations

The politics of restorative justice around struggles over material and symbolic reparations is one of the central issues in transitions to democracy. This paper discusses the quest for and creation of memorials for severe human rights abuses as forms of symbolic reparations for the crimes of the past. It focuses in particular on the interaction of claimants, social movements, policy entrepreneurs, and governments to assess the political opportunity structures that allow for such memorials to become state funded, supported projects. Two cases covered here discuss the Holocaust memorial (2004) and the memorial for homosexuals (2008) persecuted under the Nazis in Berlin.