Why do genocides occur

An Introduction to the Criminology of Genocide pp Cite as. This chapter is designed to be a brief history of the concept of genocide. Case studies include the Herero genocide, the Armenian genocide, the Bangladesh genocide, Darfur, and the Rohingya genocide. The case studies are designed to explore the history that led to the genocide. In this way similarities and differences can be analyzed in order to create potential warning signs of impending genocide.

Skip to main content. One only has to be human. Simon Adams is executive director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, a civil society organization that works with the UN Security Council on preventing mass atrocities. Yet genocides have happened over and over again—in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Guatemala, East Timor, Darfur—and volatile conditions across the world today threaten to escalate into similar horrors. Genocide is the deliberate intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

Yet national, ethnic, racial, or religious differences alone do not make people slaughter their friends, neighbors, co-workers, or even their own family members.

Under what conditions, then, will state leaders direct military organizations and ordinary people to exterminate specific groups? During the Ottoman Empire, the ruling Turks lost 75 percent of their territory in a few weeks, in enormous military defeats. Refugees returned from those lost lands starving and in crisis. The government needed a scapegoat, so they blamed everything on dangerous Christians—especially the Armenians. The result: a genocide in of 1. In Rwanda during the s, the ethnic Hutu-led government was reeling from a civil war, a devastated economy, and a rapidly-increasing population facing dire food shortages.

The minority Tutsis—despite having lived peacefully with the Hutus for generations—were blamed. The result: a genocide of more than , people in brutal days. We always portray genocide as having occurred because people hate those of a different faith or background or race. Paul, MN. The human rights organization provides education on genocides and atrocity crimes in the past and those occurring today and advocates at local, state, and national levels.

Decades of research have provided a solid understanding of the causes of genocide, broadly defined as the intentional destruction of a group in whole or in part. Although historical cases vary in numerous ways—there are crucial differences between the genocides of Rwanda, Cambodia, the Ottoman Empire, and the Holocaust—we can identify four general conditions. First, most genocides are preceded by histories of discrimination and unpunished violence against the targeted group.

In pre-Nazi Europe, Jews faced decades of discrimination and even periodic killings, especially in Eastern Europe. In Rwanda, Tutsi were dehumanized and occasionally massacred in the decades prior to the genocide.

Second, genocide is normally carried out by leaders of authoritarian states or insurgent groups like ISIS with radical political ideologies that frame victims as existential enemies. The Armenian genocide, for example, was carried out by Turkish leaders whose racist ideology portrayed Armenians as dangerous traitors. Third, significant social crises may create the context for genocidal violence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Rost, 'Will It Happen Again? Rummel, Rudolph. Death By Government. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Weitz, Eric D. Edited by Robert Gellately and Ben Kiernan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rummel, Death By Government. Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century. Thus, it would not be fruitful to include two conditions which are so similar. Esteban et al. Complicity of the state or contending authorities; 2. Evidence of intent; 3. Victims as members of an identifiable group; 4.

Policies and practices that cause prolonged mass suffering; 5. Threat posed to survival of the group by these actions. For the precise coding procedure see Marshall, Monty G.

Keith, Jaggers, and Ted Robert Gurr. Polity IV Project. Redesigning Social Inquiry. Fuzzy Sets and Beyond. Ragin, Charles. The Comparative Method. Berkeley: University of California Press. See for a discussion of liberal democratic genocides Moses, A. Powell, Christopher. A Relational Conception of Genocide.

Minimal solutions are the opposite extreme, producing many configurations in order to then have as many of the cases with the present outcome covered as possible, but in the process also covering many non-outcomes and thus reducing the consistency.

Most commonly, an intermediate solution is thus used, which balances this and tries to find a solution which covers as many cases as possible, but still does not reduce the consistency too much. Coverage scores show how many of the outcome cases can be explained by this solution — raw scores detail how many cases are covered by this combination, while unique coverage means the cases which are explained only by this combination.

A consistency score of 1, for instance, would indicate that there are no cases in which the outcome does not occur with these combinations of conditions, thus making these combinations truly sufficient for causing the outcome. Bara, Corinne. Chalk, Frank and Kurt Jonassohn. Colaresi, Michael and Sabine C. Fein, Helen.

Freedom House. Freeman, Michael. Harff, Barbara. Kuper, Leo. Mann, Michael. Marshall, Monty G. Moses, A. On the Possibility of Forecasting the Risk of Genocide. Edited by Robert Gellately and Ben Kiernan, pages Menu Menu Close. Resource Governance. Gender Democracy. International Politics. About Cambodia. Service Links Menu. Why Genocide Occurs. Share with friends: Tweet Share Share Print. Introduction Why genocides occur has been one of the central debates within the study of genocide over previous decades and has been informed by studies from a range of disciplines.

Why Do Genocides Occur? Elite Ethnicity and Ethnic Cleavages Defined as "states with re-existing internal cleavages and real opposition," 14 pluralistic states have often come into existence during the process of colonisation and decolonisation when multiethnic states emerged as borders were determined arbitrarily by colonial masters.

Exclusionary ideology Chalk and Jonassohn posit that modern genocide is implemented as an ideology, selecting victims according to who they are, not what they have or where they are, as in premodern genocides.

Genocide As genocide definitions vary, the lists of included cases in different studies diverge also. Table 1: Overview of condition distribution. Political upheaval P Given the focus on political upheaval in the definition of the outcome, the condition of interest here is not the presence or absence of political upheaval itself, but— following Harff—a differentiation between high levels and low levels of political upheaval.

They weren't encouraged to travel to democratic countries or listen to the British Broadcasting Service. Broadcast was strictly forbidden by law. You could get put in prison for listening to the BBC. They [the Germans] didn't have a free flow of information. We, today, have access to many different media and many different opinions that put us in a different category than the Germans in the s. KISSI: But there is a need for them [young people], while respecting authority, to question information.

And it is the questioning of information, the critical examination of information that is required for young people to develop a collective awareness of the fact that the insecurity of one individual in society is the absence of peace for everybody. KOONZ: A good education teaches kids to question their education, to question authority—to find out what happened. To look in the past, to look at the occasions in American history when our government—convinced it was right—virtually exterminated American Indians, enslaved millions of Africans coming to this country against their will.

To be alert to the many forms that genocide can take. KISSI: I am tempted to give you three important examples of things that should exist in a society for genocide to be prevented.

Religious morality is one. But Rwanda was a religious society. I could say democracy should probably be another element. But Rwanda was a democratic society to the extent that there was free press, and people had the opportunity to express themselves without hindrance. It was that democratic value that existed in Rwandan society that allowed newspapers and radio stations the freedom to spread hate speech. So the only thing that I am left with in answer to your question, is that democracy does not cut it.

Religious morality does not cut it. Free press does not cut it. All three even facilitate genocide.