Commissioned history and the confluence of history and jurisdiction. A comparative and meta-historical analysis of four government-appointed historical commissions in Europe after 1989

Since the end of the Cold War many countries have turned to historical commissions as a way to deal with the past. This project comparatively analyses four post-1989 European government-appointed historical commissions (the German U+2018Enquete-kommisionU+2019, the Swiss U+2018Bergier-commissionU+2019, the Dutch Srebrenica-inquiry, and the Belgian Lumumba-commission) which are from an empirical and a meta-historical perspective. I focus on three sets of research questions: concerning the occasion, timing, purpose, and effects of historical commissions; concerning the relation between these commissions and the field of jurisdiction; and concerning their relation with U+2018traditionalU+2019 historiography.