Accounting for genocide after 1945: Theories and some findings

1993 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Fein
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Empirical Relation ◽  
Ethnic Discrimination ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
High Likelihood ◽  
Ethnic Conflicts ◽  
Political Exclusion ◽  
Plural Society

AbstractGenocide has been related in social theory to both social and political structure: i.e., plural society (ethnoclass exclusion and discrimination) and types of polities - revolutionary, totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. War has also been noted as an instigator or frequent context of genocide. This paper reviews theoretical expectations and examines the empirical relation between genocides (and other state massacres) and indices of ethnic discrimination, polity form, and war among states in Asia, Africa and the Mid-East from 1948 to 1988. Findings show that (1) most users of genocide are repeat offenders. (2) There is a high likelihood of political exclusion and discrimination of ethnoclasses producing rebellions which instigate genocides and other state-sponsored massacres. (3) As expected, unfree, authoritarian, and one-party communist states (in ascending order) are most likely to use genocide. Democratic states in this era are not perpetrators against their citizens but have been patrons and accomplices of genocidal regimes elsewhere. One-party communist states are 4.5 times more likely to have used genocide than are authoritarian states. (4) States involved in wars are many more times as likely to have employed genocide than other states. Exploring these cases, we find that genocides both lead to war and war leads to genocide through several processes. (5) The use of genocide in conflicts within the state in the regions surveyed tripled between 1968-88 compared to the preceding score of years (10:3 cases). Genocide and genocidal massacres occur so often that they may be considered normal in these regions. Both the theoretical and the policy implications of these findings are discussed. Observing on the latter, we note that journalists and scholars have often confused recognition of genocide and genocidal massacres by framing these cases as 'ethnic conflicts', by confounding the toll of war and massacre and by conflating concepts. To deter genocide, we should promote nonviolent change in order to eliminate ethnoclass domination and monitor civil wars to detect

Lustration as a Problem of the Social Basis of Constitutionalism

1995 ◽  
Vol 20 (01) ◽  
pp. 245-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur L. Stinchcornbe
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Social Supports ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Old Regime ◽  
Regime Changes ◽  
Social Basis ◽  
Cultural Boundary ◽  
The Social ◽  
Minor Part ◽  
Definition Of

One part of building a new constitution after wars, revolutions, civil wars, or dramatic regime changes is to draw a cultural boundary in time, declaring various aspects of the old regime illegitimate and various legalities and constitutional principles of the new regime legitimate. One part of that process, in turn, is to decide how the new regime should treat the guilt of individuals for terror, collaboration, betrayal of information to the regime, and the like. This essay argues that such lustration processes should be a very minor part of the definition of the meaning of the pat, and even less of a part of building social supports under the new constitution. It also assesses the contributions on lustration in this issue in light of this view of what place lustration should play in the construction of democratic constitutions after authoritarian regimes.

Wars for Ethnic or Nationalist Supremacy

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin P. Johnson ◽  
Ashlea Rundlett
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Internal Conflict ◽  
Ethnic Conflicts ◽  
Contributing Factors ◽  
Religious Wars ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Identity Based

Conflicts that occur along ethnic or nationalist lines are often the most protracted, violent, and difficult to resolve in the long term. Civil wars are often divided into two distinct types: ethnic/religious wars (identity), and revolutionary wars (nonidentity). The distinction between these conflict types is based on whether cleavages within a society occur along ethnic lines or along lines that cut across ethnic divisions and are focused on issues including class, ideology, or seeking significant policy orientation of change. The most significant theoretical and empirical contributions to the understanding of ethnic conflicts in recent years come from the disaggregation of civil wars focusing on micro- and group-level dynamics. This disaggregation supports theoretical advancement and a departure from using macro-level data with micro-level mechanisms supports transition from a monadic to dyadic study of ethnic conflict, and supports examination of potential causal mechanisms of ethnic violence. Scholarly traditions and theoretical approaches explaining identity mobilization along ethnic or nationalist lines, the contributing factors that explain the transition from mobilization to the exercise of political violence, the duration of identity-based conflicts, and the long-term prospects for settlement of the conflict have enjoyed a proliferation of studies using newly available data featuring subnational units. These include explanations of conflicts based in sociological foundations focused on the formation and maintenance of identity, structural explanations for internal conflict focus on the capacity of the state and the distribution of political authority within a political system, and the opportunity for rebellion.

scholarly journals The "narcissism of minor differences" theory: Can it explain ethnic conflict?

2007 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pål Kolstø
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Present Article ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Individual Psychology ◽  
Ethnic Conflicts ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Philosophy Of Culture ◽  
Narcissism Of Minor Differences

In many ethnic conflicts and civil wars in the 20th century the cultural differences between the warring groups were very small. The bloody conflicts between Serbs, Croatians, and Bosnians during the breakup of Yugoslavia are a case in point. This observation has led some commentators to conclude that a lack of objective cultural markers between groups may itself be conducive to violence: When the members of two groups are difficult to tell apart, violence is inserted in order to create identity boundaries between them. One particular version of this theory goes under the name ?narcissism of minor differences?. This expression goes back to Sigmund Freud, who applied it both to individual psychology and in his philosophy of culture. The notion has been largely ignored by practicing psychotherapists, but over the last decades, however, it has been discovered by journalists and social scientists and applied to cases of collective rather than individual violence. The present article examines some of the articles and books that expound the ?the narcissism of minor differences?-concept in order to assess the explanatory strength and weaknesses of this theory. .

Labour-Market Theory, Quantification, and Policy

1987 ◽  
Vol 19 (11) ◽  
pp. 1477-1494 ◽  
Author(s):  
S P Pinch
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Labour Markets ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Market Theory ◽  
Quantitative Studies ◽  
Local Labour ◽  
Level Of Agreement

This paper contains a consideration of the relationships between social theory, quantification, and policy in the context of changing local labour markets. It is argued that different theories have different policy implications which cannot be resolved by quantitative analysis because these various theories embody differing methodological assumptions. There is, however, a common low level of agreement over certain possible changes and tendencies in social systems and these can be probed by quantitative studies.

scholarly journals Internet Service Provision under Authoritarian Rule: A Field Experiment in Belarus

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Crabtree ◽  
Nils B. Weidmann
Keyword(s):  
Field Experiment ◽  
Internet Access ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
Internet Service ◽  
Political Exclusion ◽  
Related Service ◽  
The Government ◽  
Exclusion Mechanism ◽  
Cross National

Do authoritarian regimes strategically limit the opposition’s Internet access? By constricting Internet access to potential challengers, governments can reduce the need to censor (since anti-regime content would be less likely to be produced and read) and also the need for large infrastructure shutdowns (which may harm the government). Cross-national work shows that political exclusion is associated with significantly lower rates of connectivity for the affected groups, but cannot tell us whether this pattern is because governments strategically limiting Internet access of the political opposition. We test this mechanism with a field experiment in Belarus. We email support centers of the national telecommunications provider and vary partisan cues in our emails. In linewith the strategic exclusion mechanism, we find a tendency that opposition support leads to lower response rates for Internet-related service requests. Due to the low responserate, however, our findings largely fail to reach conventional levels of significance.

scholarly journals Literary Reception of War in the Contemporary Georgian Women’s Poetry

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nino Gogiashvili
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Contemporary Poetry ◽  
Fear Of Death ◽  
Ethnic Conflicts ◽  
Women's Poetry ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
National Cultures ◽  
Literary Reception

War has been reflected in national cultures and literature of every country, as it is related to sharp and turbulent emotions. The fear of death, tension, heroic pathos and suffering, following every war, gives it esthetic value and certain romantic touch too. Georgian-Ossetian conflict, war in Abkhazia, civil war and Georgian-Russian war have clearly been reflected in the literature created at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries, both in prose and poetry. In the presented report I will discuss Georgian women’s poetry, in which war is a literary reception and poems are the space for the reflection of emotions caused by war. In 2020, were published 2 volumes of the Almanac – Without Limits – which include texts by Georgian woman poets and writers, dedicated to war. Accordingly, the main literary material when preparing the report was the first, poetry volume of the aforementioned Almanac. The thesis does not consider discussion of war reception in general, in contemporary poetry, but only in the works by contemporary woman poets. There are radically different opinions on whether or not anthologies must differ according to gender and that art and its creator – artist – do not have an art-gender. It is true that art is universal and stands above any ethnic, race, religious, gender or age affiliations; however, we cannot ignore the fact that all these criteria are revealed themselves in literary works. Therefore, women’s poetry is specific and woman is always seen in its invisible nuances. In view of the research, it appeared to be very interesting and essential, how the war topic has been accepted and processed by contemporary women’s poetry. Contexts of Russian occupation, Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian-Ossetian ethnic conflicts, civil wars, formed as the new, post-soviet stereotypes, have clearly been reflected in Georgian women’s poetry; while postmodernism has appeared to be the favorable space for ignoring the Soviet clichés.

scholarly journals Group Grievances & Civil War: Some Theory and Empirics on Competing Mechanisms, 1990-2017

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Indra de Soysa ◽  
Krishna Vadlamnnati ◽  
henning finseraas
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Private Ownership ◽  
Economic Governance ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Collective Action Problems ◽  
Political Exclusion

<p>Recent scholarship forcefully claims that group grievances due to political exclusion and discrimination drive civil wars. This perspective argues that socio-psychological factors allow groups to overcome collective action problems. We argue that the grievance perspective (over)focuses on the <i>ends</i> and not <i>means</i>, which are critical to explain how groups survive state repression, allowing contention to become civil wars. We suggest that inclusive economic governance reduces investment in state-evading infrastructures for quotidian economic reasons. Our analyses show that group-grievance-generating political factors are poorer predictors of civil war compared with economic freedoms measured as free-market friendly policies and the private ownership of economies. These results are robust to several alternative models, data, and estimating method. Theory that ignores the <i>means </i>explain the main causes of costly violence only partially or mistake symptom for cause. Freedom and inclusiveness are intrinsically valuable and hard to obtain when violence is waged for narrower ends. </p><p> </p>

scholarly journals THE The Nexus between Socio-Economic Environment and Recurrence of Inter-Ethnic Conflicts In Nyakach and Sigowet Sub-Counties of Western Kenya

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 4595-4603
Author(s):  
James Omondi Juma ◽  
Prof. Crispinous Iteyo ◽  
Dr. Ruth Simiyu
Keyword(s):  
Youth Unemployment ◽  
Economic Environment ◽  
Ethnic Conflicts ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Cultural Perceptions ◽  
Western Kenya ◽  
Political Exclusion ◽  
Boundary Issues ◽  
Economic Constraints ◽  
The Relationship

The recurrence of inter-ethnic conflicts is mainly attributed the socio-economic constraints and deprivations that make disgruntled communities turn against one another in the efforts to get the kind of services they believe that they deserve. This is a common phenomenon globally and also in Kenya. There are a number of social and economic issues surrounding inter-ethnic conflicts in Nyakach and Sigowet Sub-counties of Western Kenya that have made communities get involved in the conflicts regularly. The study investigated the nexus between the socio-economic environment and the recurrence of inter-ethnic conflicts in Nyakach and Sigowet Sub-counties of Western Kenya. The paper aim at examining the relationship between the socio-economic environment and the recurrent inter-ethnic conflicts  in area of study. The results therefore show the connection between following socio-economic factors and conflicts the socio-economic activities, distribution of economic resources and opportunities, Politicization of ethnicity and political exclusion,  socio-cultural perceptions and Stereotypes, and the socio-economic drivers of conflicts including poverty, youth unemployment, ethnic mistrust and land and boundary issues. Key words: Recurrence of conflict, Socio-economic environment, Inter-ethnic conflicts

Managing ethnic diversity and diversity and directing it to achieve political stability in Malaysia

2020 ◽  
pp. 281
Author(s):  
Ruqaia Kareem Jar Allah
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Ethnic Differences ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Ethnic Conflicts ◽  
Political Crises ◽  
The World ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Political Economic

Malaysia's political system is a pioneering model in providing an appropriate mechanism to accommodate religious and ethnic differences in Malaysia and realistically addresses the economic and social imbalances prevailing in Malaysian society. Malaysia's political leadership has been able to leapfrog and jump over all ethnic problems at all levels (political, economic, and development), at a time when most of the world is unable to contain ethnic differences that threaten internal divisions and ethnic rivalries that sometimes reach To civil wars, and the Malaysians managed to develop their model, which managed the difference with great skill, and benefited from diversity as a state of enrichment and enrichment, not a state of conflict and conflict. Their system was not necessarily ideal but it was successful enough to spare the country political crises, religious and ethnic conflicts, and achieve high development and economic ratios. This model represents the case of impact handling with complexities and variables, without delinquency.

Policy Implications

2019 ◽  
pp. 271-294
Author(s):  
Vera Mironova
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
The Other ◽  
Armed Group ◽  
Civil Conflicts ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Foreign Government ◽  
Foreign Actor ◽  
Sphere Of Influence ◽  
The Right

Although today’s civil conflicts are very different from those of previous generations, it is not a foregone conclusion that today’s Western-affiliated rebel groups will suffer defeat. While with any new conflict the task becomes more and more difficult, it is still possible to outcompete other groups in the rebel bloc, at least right now. On the other hand, it is hard to imagine a victory of a Western-oriented, startup armed group without significant outside support, because they lack experience and resources. At the same time, international actors with a different agenda also don’t want to miss a chance to use their money, experience, and knowledge to increase their sphere of influence through proxy groups in war-torn countries. That, in sum, makes this generation’s civil wars a highly competitive market for outside supporters. I this chapter the author discusses how this knowledge can be used to terminate a conflict more quickly by making foreign government intervention more effective—in particular, how a foreign actor could (1) choose a group in the rebel bloc to support; (2) persuade the group to accept support; and (3) provide the proper help at the right time in order to empower one group at the expense of others within the rebel camp.

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