Elite Interviews

Interviewed elites in all three cases were selected based on their knowledge of the conflict and/or transitional justice efforts. Interviewees included government officials, members of the judiciary, civil society members, rebel group commanders and members, and international embassy and NGO staff. Before field research in each location, I compiled a list of individuals and organizations to interview. Once in the field, I relied on snowball sampling to identify additional people recommended by interviewees. Interviews were semistructured and generally lasted about one hour each. The full list of interviews by case can be found in Appendix B.

In Rwanda and Uganda, I worked with local research assistants who helped arrange meetings and provided translation when necessary. In Rwanda, most of the interviews were conducted in either French (the language I speak) or Kinyarwanda. I worked closely with my research assistants to translate interviews and compile field notes. In Uganda, all elite interviews were conducted in English (the language I speak), but on some occasions my research assistant helped participants translate certain concepts into English, often from Acholi. Research assistants in both countries were selected based on recommendations from colleagues who taught political science or conflict studies at a local university. In Northern Ireland, I worked without a research assistant. Interviews were conducted entirely in English.

Lay Interviews

In addition to elite interviews, I conducted interviews with people who had been exposed to violence during the conflicts in Rwanda and Northern Ireland. In Uganda, I relied on focus groups discussed further below. Unlike existing interview and survey work in this research area, respondents were not sampled on conflict experience (i.e., perceived victim status), but rather by random sample across geographic location. This technique allowed me to identify a wider variety of experiences, including people who did not consider themselves victims by the government definition of criminality. This sampling technique allowed me to explore a greater range of experiences with violence in each country.

In Rwanda, I identified four sectors for research based on existing conflict data (Armstrong et al. Reference Armstrong, Davenport and Stam2020): two sectors that experienced high levels of genocide violence (Nyamagabe and Karongi) and two sectors that experienced low levels of genocide violence (Musanze and Rulindo). Sectors were selected based on the level of genocide violence experienced in each location as measured by duration of the violence (start and end date of genocide violence in that sector) and intensity of the violence (the number of people killed over the course of the genocide [April–July 1994]). In addition, one urban (Nyamagabe and Musanze) and one rural (Karongi and Rulindo) sector were chosen from each category.

In Northern Ireland, I interviewed people from each community (Catholic and Protestant) across both urban and rural locations. Interviews were conducted in two locations: Ardoyne/Upper Ardoyne and South Armagh. These two areas were selected based on the diversity of conflict experiences, measured by type of violations and perpetrators of the violence, across communities in these areas. Both locations experienced high levels of violence but had different experiences of the conflict (measured in types of violations and perpetrators of those violations). While the Ardoyne/Upper Ardoyne area is an urban center and was subjected to rioting and a high level of police and army surveillance, South Armagh is predominantly rural and experienced violence that was more similar to a conventional guerilla war with substantial attacks between Republican paramilitary organizations and the British Army. These locations were selected using Sutton’s Index of Deaths (Sutton Reference Sutton1994). In addition to selecting areas in Northern Ireland with diverse conflict experiences, I also interviewed individuals within certain communities (e.g., Catholic and Protestant). It is generally assumed in the conflict literature on Northern Ireland that the experiences of Catholic and Protestant communities vary (Lundy and McGovern Reference Lundy and McGovern2008). To account for this potential variation, I sampled evenly from both communities.

Interviews in Rwanda were conducted between October and December 2009. Interviews in Northern Ireland were conducted between April and July 2010. The total time of each interview ranged between 1 and 3.5 hours, with the average interview taking about 2 hours. Respondents were questioned on their conflict experience, their knowledge and participation in existing transitional justice institutions, as well as their current views of justice in their country and community. The interview questionnaire relied on a combination of open-ended and closed-ended questions based in part on McCracken’s (Reference McCracken1988) method from The Long Interview. The closed-ended questions are those with a specific set of choices presented to the respondent (e.g., scaling questions such as ranking a topic between strongly disagree and strongly agree). Such questions were used to derive easily comparable responses across interview categories. Open-ended questions where those in which the respondent was asked a broad or general question.

The interaction between open-ended and closed-ended questions is most apparent in the collection of information on conflict experience. To determine the experience a given individual had with the conflict, they were first asked a series of “yes” or “no” questions about different types of violations (e.g., Were you physically assaulted? Was your property destroyed? etc.). Once this series of questions was completed, respondents were asked, “Are there any other ways that you suffered?” This open-ended question allowed respondents to add to the given list of violations or broaden their descriptions of those experiences.

Focus Groups

Due to the ongoing nature of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) threat in Uganda, rather than conduct individual interviews, I primarily relied on focus groups conducted in 2013 and 2020. These focus groups were conducted in five conflict-affected areas in Northern Uganda: Atiak, Barlonyo, Lukodi, Pabbo, and Pajule. Focus groups were conducted in Uganda with the assistance of a local research organization, Foundation for Justice and Development Initiative (FJDI). Participants in the focus groups were selected based on engagement with FJDI and their work with local victim support organizations. For that reason, these focus groups should be understood as containing information from individuals who self-identify as victims of the LRA conflict.