IV. THE FORM OF THE CONSULTATIONS The consultations that preceded or coincided with early transitional justice initiatives, mainly in the 1990s, were almost all qualitative. This was the case, for instance, before the establishment of the truth and reconciliation commissions in South Africa and Sierra Leone. Since then, however, various forms of quantitative methodologies have been used, as well as consultations that integrated both approaches. A. Quantitative consultations As the name suggests, the main focus of quantitative consultations is to collect, analyse and interpret quantifiable information. The information is scientifically measured in numbers and percentages, and mathematical or statistical techniques are used to analyse them. The principal quantitative consultation technique is the survey. In a survey, consultation experts ask a usually large number of people a series of pre-designed questions either through written questionnaires or through formal, structured interviews. Researchers use sampling techniques to select participants, either randomly choosing a group from a population of interest (random sampling) or seeking individuals with specific, pre-designed attributes (purposive sampling). By studying the selected sample they may extrapolate their findings to the population from which the sample was chosen. Public opinion surveys are very common in transitional justice consultations. They can help policymakers and researchers in assessing public expectations of how to deal with the past, in measuring trust and support for traditional or alternative mechanisms of transitional justice, or in testing the legitimacy of a proposed transitional justice policy and the public support for it. Surveys conducted in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in 2004 found that the demand for lustration remained high 15 years after the fall of communism. Surveys have also demonstrated the unwillingness of a society to support transitional justice programmes. For instance, surveys conducted in the former Yugoslavia during 2000–2002 indicated a lack of communitywide demand for international prosecutions. One of the most extensive and far-reaching quantitative consultations to evaluate transitional justice processes was undertaken by the South African Institute for Justice and Reconciliation in 2000/2001.11 Researchers conducted a large, nationally representative survey among almost 4,000 South Africans. The survey measured the level of satisfaction with the performance of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the level of approval of the amnesty process, as well as the degree of (racial) reconciliation. 11 James Gibson and Helen MacDonald, “Truth – yes, reconciliation – maybe: South Africans judge the truth and reconciliation process”, research report (Rondebosch, Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, 2001). 7