Exam #1 Flashcards
(36 cards)
The United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (How did the convention come about?; How does the convention define genocide? What critiques have scholars made?)
Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such
Killing members of the group
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
Convention was in 1948
Why do we study genocide globally and comparatively? (review our lecture and discussion of Meierhenrich pgs 3-55)
To understand as precisely as possible the relationship between violence in the Ancient and Medieval worlds and genocide in the 20th and 21st centuries
To understand how societies or societal leaders come to see genocide as a legitimate and even necessary strategy for their success and survival
To identify common patterns, underlying factors, and causal theories that connect cases of genocide
To determine strategies for intervening in, preventing, and helping societies recover from genocide
Benjamin Valentino: What causal theories does he discuss?; What are his critiques of these theories?; What is the Strategic Perspective and why does Valentino believe this is the most useful for predicting when and where genocide is likely to occur?
Social cleavages and dehumanization
Unusually deep, preexisting social cleavages are neither sufficient nor universally necessary conditions for mass killing
National crises are common but mass killings are rare
The scapegoat theory relies on the existence of strong social cleavages, which are insufficient for genocide and mass killing
The scapegoat theory may explain the actions of individual leaders more than society at large
We know little about the special circumstances and factors that determine when political elites will take advantage of the genocidal opportunities presented by national crises
Democracies engage in mass killing during foreign wars, in colonies, and against non-citizens
Democracies fund and provide support to governments that carry out mass killing
Most undemocratic regimes do not engage in mass killing most of the time
An understanding of genocide begins with the specific goals and strategies of high political and military leaders
Leaders resort to mass killing and genocide as final solutions to their most urgent political and military problems
Must understand the specific goals, ideas, and beliefs of powerful groups
Mass killing is most likely to happen when regimes:
Seek to radically change the structure of their societies (radical communization)
Seek to rid their territory of a population group that they consider to be a threat
Seek to defeat major guerrilla insurgencies
A. Dirk Moses: What arguments does Moses make in his chapter regarding how we should determine intent in settler colonial cases of genocide?; How does Moses describe the strengths and weaknesses of the intentionalist and structuralist perspectives? What evidence does he provide in his chapter for how and why the genocide happened (you should know the general timeline, main characters, and relevant policies discussed in the chapter)
Settler colonialism entails a “zero-sum contest over land”… Europeans primarily wanted Aborigines’ land, not their labor
Thus the primary logic of settler colonialism can be characterized as one of elimination
Benjamin Madley “From Africa to Auschwitz”: What connections does Madley make between the genocide of the Herero in German Southwest Africa and the Holocaust?
Racial ideologies and scientific racism
Military tactics and extermination policies
Concentration camps and forced labor
Genocide
Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such
Killing members of the group
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
Crimes against Humanity
Acts committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population, including murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation or forcible transfer, imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, persecution, disappearance, apartheid, or inhumane acts that cause great suffering or serious injury
War crimes
Violations of the laws or customers of war, including the murder, ill-treatment, enslavement or deportation of a civilian population, the use of child soldiers, the murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity
Crimes of Aggression
The use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, integrity, or independence of another state
Ethnic cleansing
(a contested term) The forced removal or transfer of people
Social Cleavages & Dehumanization
Genocide is caused by deep divisions between different groups living in the same society
Scapegoat Theory
societies facing crises blame their hardships on minority groups or powerless majorities
Political Opportunity Theory
national crises provide incentives, opportunity, and cover for revolutionary elites seeking to consolidate political power or implement genocidal ideologies
National Crises Theory
Wars, revolutions, economic depressions, and other catastrophes provide the critical spark for mass killing
Democracy and Mass Killing
Democracies are less likely to commit genocide and mass killing than totalitarian and communist regimes
The Strategic Perspective
An understanding of genocide begins with the specific goals and strategies of high political and military leaders
Leaders resort to mass killing and genocide as final solutions to their most urgent political and military problems
Dispossession mass killing
When leaders’ plans result in the near-complete material disenfranchisement of large groups of people, leaders are likely to conclude that mass killing is necessary to overcome resistance by these groups or…that mass killing is the only practical way to physically remove these groups or influence from society
Coercive mass killing
When leaders are in military conflicts and perceive conventional military tactics to be hopeless or unacceptably costly
When leaders’ efforts to defeat their enemy’s military forces directly are frustrated, they face powerful incentives to target the civilian populations they suspect of supporting those forces
Guerrilla warfare
no clear lines of battle, relies on small, mobile, and irregular forces operating without heavy weaponry, avoids large decisive battles in favor of prolonged fighting such as hit-and-tun attacks, assassinations, terror bombing, and sabotage, relies on local civilian populations for key aspects of support
Leo Kuper
South African sociologist who specialized in the study of genocide
Raphael Lemkin
A Polish Lawyer who proposed a law based on two concepts: barbarity and vandalism
Coined the term in 1944
Sogohomon Tehlirian
Assisnated Mehmed Talaat, the former Turkish interior minister for the Ottoman Empire on March 14, 1921
Lothar von Trotha
German commander during the Herero Genocide
Truganini
The last full-blooded Tasmanian aboriginal woman who died in 1876
