Midterm 1: Theory Flashcards
Define Genocide Etimology
- Geno: Race or Tribe
- Cide: Killing
UN Definition of Genocide
Formulation of intent
Goal
Mode of annihilation
target
perpetrator
• Formulation of intent?
Coordinated plan
Must be proven intent on part of perpetrator, cultural destruction or discretion (?) does not count
• Goal of genocide?
Destroy in part or in whole of targeted groups
• What is the mode of annihilation?
destructive “Mass killing conditions, & institutional birth prevention, destruction forcible of culture” child
• Who is the target?:
National groups, ethnic groups, religious groups, racial groups
• Who is the perpetrator?
No clear actor mentioned–> everyone
Lemkin Definition of Genocide
Formulation of intent
Goal
Mode of annihilation
target
perpetrator
• Formulation of Intent?
“coordinated plan.”
• Goal
“aim of annihilating the groups themselves”
• Mode of annihilation
“Mass killing & institutional destruction & personal security”
• Target
“Nation or ethnic group”
• Perpetrator
“Oppressor states”
Problems with these definitions?
Formulation of intent–Jones: actualization of intent however successfully carried out–> same broadness, but also observability could be through coordinated plan or through other ways—> intent can materialize but also captures different forms it can be materialized
Goal: “The Numbers problem”
Mode of annihilation: Genocide could happen without one person being killed, as long as under conditions in which person could be killed
Target: inclusion of racial and religious in UN not lemkin, neither political group, social group, gender
Potential Definition
Actualized intent to physically and violently destroy a group as a whole (including civilians) where the group is constituted as an organic collectivity by the perpetrators.
Why Questions to Ask
- Why this group?
- Why this place and time?
- Why Mass Murder?
HOLOCAUST: Snyder “Bloodlands”
• Double-occupation land (SU and Germans)
• Poles perceive their Jewish neighbors as collaborators with the SU
–> Opportunity for revenger, Deployment Militias
HOLOCAUST: Intenationalism
- Holocaust happened because Hitler intended to kill the Jews early on (redemptive antisemitism)
- Devised a system to do so
- Emigration & concentration temporary stopgaps
- After invasion SU Hitler implemented his plan
HOLOCAUST: Functionalism
- No directives from higher up: Hitler never ordered for Jews to be killed, but
- Local bureaucrats developed local solutions to “Jewish problem” (e.g. in Poland).
- Over time less radical solutions were no longer available and mass killing became an option
HOLOCAUST: Bergen Explains Holocaust
BOTH Internationalism and Functionalism
Hitler made clear what he wanted to do with the Jews.
• Local solutions were created in light of this goal
• Competition between different local actors activated a spiral of radicalization (working towards the Fuhrer).
• Hence it could not have happened without
Hitler’s clear intentions (intentionalist)
Local solutions (functionalist)
Jewish identity vs Armenian identity
Intimate Violence: Anti-Jewish Pogroms on the Eve of the Holocaust by Jason Wittenberg and Jeffrey Kopstein—> • Minority bloc in Poland
United minorities in Poland->gaining autonomy
Zionist leader
Difference: unified several minorities under that banner
• More pogroms in towns with high support for minority block
STRAUSS Readings: Negative Case Studies
Cote d’ivoire or Ivory coast vs. Rwanda? Sources of RESTRAINT
Method of difference: Negative cases (Strauss)
• No sampling on the dependent variable
• Compare cases that vary in outcome to be explained (Genocide)
• Choose case that is very similar but does not experience a genocide
• Trace differences
• Allows one to see how the absence of something matters (restraint)
Straus
• Why did genocide break out in Rwanda but not in Ivory Coast?
• Ivory coast as a negative case:
Very similar on a lot of dimensions–> instability, democratization, war, active militias, political elites condoned violence
On the verge of Genocide
Retreated from the brink BECAUSE: sources of economic restraint and culture of dialogue by leaders
SOME Ways of looking at genocide:
Methods of agreement and Methods of difference
Forces of Constraint Ivory Coast vs. Rwanda (according to Strauss)
Culture of dialogue–> promotes form of tolerance
Economic interests–> more dependent upon exports, would suffer greater economic consequences if commit mass murder
Macro-Level Theories
Question: Why do genocides break out?
Actors:States, nations, elites, global forces
- –> High aggregation level
- –> focuses less on individual cases
Common Explanations of Genocide in methods of agreement
- -> WAR
- –> AGGRESSIVE NATIONALISM
- –> DEMOCRATIZATION
- –> DECLINE
- –> MISMATCH RACE AND SPACE
Violence and human nature:
• William Golding vs. Margaret Mead
• William Golding Lord of the Flies: humans brutal animals hardwired to commit violence, only avoid because of veneer of civilization
• Margaret Mead Coming of Age in Samoa: Men actually good and peaceful —>why we fight war: We invented war and that is what made us killers
Draws on Rouseau
Violence and modernity: Rousseau
- Human nature = good
- Violence created by Property, Ideology, Killing machinery
- War and violence are modern inventions–> governments produce rather than tame violence)
Violence and modernity: Hobbes: 1640 England
• Human nature bad.
• Without a strong authority men would be living in anarchy–>
• Without a constant a strong state of authority war, as if men of every, would against live in every men.
• Need The Leviathan:
–> peaceful need a strong government
—>Nothing in the state of nature, if you would create or produce something people would murder you–> no one has incentive to produce
Structure according to Hobbes
War of all against all–> unhappy life–> individuals give up rights–> formation of state–> cost of disobediance–> individual compliance–> social order
Two paths out of this condition to building state:
Peaceful: Commonwealth institution
Violent: Commonwealth by acquisition (using violence to create order from above)
Bellicist Perspective on war
- -> Wars catalysts for important social change.
- –> Leviathan end result of war
- –>Universities, property rights, courts, democracies
- –>Demands of war create opportunities for innovation and adaptation.
- –> shaped modern society
- –> In the West: war produced STRONG nation-states.
- –>Strong nation-states, after being produced by war, create peace!
State
state is an entity that uses coercion and the threat of force to rule in a given territory.
Monopoly of violence (requires the ability of organized use of violence)
Legitmacy
Nation
a group of people who imagine they share some sort of common identity like a language, a religion, an ethnicity, or common history.
Nation State
state in which a single nation predominates and the legal, social, demographic, and geographic boundaries of the state are connected in important ways to that nation.
State as “Protection Rackets” (Tilly 1985)
Protection Racket—>
• States trade security for revenue
• Seller of security (which they create need for) represents a key threat to the buyer of security.