The language of human rights in the Guatemalan transition to democracy

The Guatemalan negotiations for peace between the guerrillas of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) and successive civilian governments came to an end on December 29, 1996. The 13 separate Peace Accords that resulted from that process have already been the subject of much debate in and outside Guatemala. Instead of just praising or criticizing the contents of the Peace Accords, however, this thesis sets out to examine the cultural and political process that brought the Accords into existence. Using the work of political philosophers such as Jürgen Habermas and Alasdair MacIntyre, this thesis interprets the Peace Process as resulting from at least half a century of social differentiation, rationalization of everyday life, and linguistification of conflict resolution. This thesis illustrates this complex process of “modernization” through an examination of various ethnic communities and segments of the social structure that characterize Guatemalan society. This thesis emphasizes how profound processes of cultural and political change can be conceptualized as a dynamic and often violent transition to modernity. To illustrate this argument this thesis offers a historical narrative of the modern history of Guatemala, from 1954 to the present, as this narrative becomes evident in the development and deployment of successive forms of cultural and political language, from the language of revolution to the language of human rights. These languages have played a crucial role in terms of what people are capable of articulating through their discourses and practices and the struggles over the meaning of identity, community, the good life, justice, nationality, and democracy that people have waged over the past fifty years. Thus, this thesis interprets the Peace Process, and the role of individuals and new social movements that constituted themselves as a civil society, as responding to a democratic logic with roots that transcends the development and nature of the politico-military conflict. This thesis concludes that the logic of democratization that became manifest during the peace process is normatively connected with a broader struggle for modernity and a democratic constitutional state.