* Reframes major events like South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Holocaust, and the war in Bosnia to take into account the "complex victim"
* Calls for a more effective and encompassing support of all types of victims, especially those not typically recognized as such

Images of the political victim are powerful, gripping, and integral in helping us makes sense of conflict, particularly in making moral calculations, determining who is "good" and who is "evil". These images, and the discourse of victimization that surrounds them, inform the international community when deciding to recognize certain individuals as victims and play a role in shaping response policies. These policies in turn create the potential for long term, stable peace after episodes of political victimization.

Bouris finds weighty problems with this dichotomous conception of actors in a conflict, which pervades much of contemporary peacebuilding scholarship. She instead argues that victims, much like the conflicts themselves, are complex. Rather than use this complexity as a way to dismiss victims or call for limits on the response from the international community, the book advocates for greater and more effective responses to conflict.

Table of Contents:

1) Political Victim Discourse: Adequate for the Twenty-First Century?; 2) Peacebuilding and Victim Discourse; 3) Fleshing Out the Ideal Victim; 4) The Ideal Victim in the Political: the Holocaust, the Judenrat, and Hannah Arendt; 5) Theorizing a Complex Political Victim; 6) The Delicate Task of Considering Complex Political Victims: Bosnian Muslims; 7) Political Practices of the Complex Political Victim; 8) The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Confronting a Victimized People, Victimized Nation; Epilogue: The Role of Complex Political Victim Discourse