Building States Through Public Truth-Telling (2024)

Abstract

How do states rebuild after decades of institutionalized oppression, deep societal trauma, and intergroup violence? We study the effect of one of the most iconic examples of transitional justice, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which attempted to rebuild South African society through public truth-telling. We reconstruct exposure to live broadcasting of the TRC across South African suburbs to generate quasi-exogenous variation in media coverage of the TRC hearings. We demonstrate that while the TRC fostered unity among Black South Africans, it also weakened interracial relations. In particular, we document increased segregation, lower interracial marriage rates, and reduced interracial trust. Additionally, we leverage administrative tax data to argue that the TRC hindered the implementation of affirmative action policies aimed at workplace integration. Finally, we suggest that these effects stem from Whites adjusting their beliefs about judicial bias: using daily variation in hearing content, we observe increased backlash among White South Africans whenever a White perpetrator is scrutinized by the court.