“Destroy Them to Save Us”: Theories of Genocide and the Logics of Political Violence

@article{Straus2012DestroyTT,  title={“Destroy Them to Save Us”: Theories of Genocide and the Logics of Political Violence},  author={Scott Straus},  journal={Terrorism and Political Violence},  year={2012},  volume={24},  pages={544 - 560},  url={https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:17685400}}
  • S. Straus
  • Published31 July 2012
  • Political Science, History
  • Terrorism and Political Violence
Based on an analytic review of recent scholarly advances in genocide studies, this article investigates the causes, concept, and logic of genocide while suggesting a set of theoretical propositions and avenues for future research. Two emerging theoretical streams of literature on causes—strategic and ideological—highlight different dimensions of genocide and should be thought of as compatible. The study of genocide should be embedded in a broader study of political violence; the two literatures… 

66 Citations

The Political Science of Genocide: Outlines of an Emerging Research Agenda

Over the past two decades, scholars have generated a large and sophisticated literature on genocide. Nevertheless, there are still several research areas that require further work. This article…

Unraveling the Rationality of Genocide: A Comparative Analysis of Khojaly and Srebrenica

Within the scholarly debates in political science and genocide studies, an increasingly prevailing view posits that the most adequate explanation for the occurrence of genocide is the strategic…

Genocide as Contentious Politics

Despite a recent turn towards the study of political violence within the field of contentious politics, scholars have yet to focus their lens on genocide. This is puzzling, as the field of collective…

The Contribution of Social Movement Theory to Understanding Genocide

Recent years have witnessed a turn in the field of contentious politics toward the study of political violence, yet scholars have yet to focus their lens on genocide. Moreover, research on genocide…

Macro, Meso, and Micro Research on Genocide: Gains, Shortcomings, and Future Areas of Inquiry

The article critically reviews the existing literature on genocide and mass violence and divides it according to different levels of analysis: macro, meso, and micro levels. We discuss the main…

Pinpointing Patterns of Violence: A Comparative Genocide Studies Approach to Violence Escalation in the Ukrainian Holodomor

This article utilizes the case study of the 1930s Ukrainian Holodomor, an artificially induced famine under Joseph Stalin, to advance comparative genocide studies debates regarding the nature, onset,…

Rethinking the Role of Ideology in Mass Atrocities

There is a widespread sense amongst theorists of genocide and other violent atrocities that ideology matters. But in spite of this agreement all is not well with actual efforts to theorise ideology's…

Toward a Dynamic Theory of Action at the Micro Level of Genocide

This article is about behavioral variation in genocide. Research frequently suggests that violent behaviors can be explained by or treated as synonymous with ethnic categories. This literature also…

Ideology and Mass Killing

In research on ‘mass killings’ such as genocides and campaigns of state terror, the role of ideology is hotly debated. For some scholars, ideologies are crucial in providing the extremist goals and…

Violence, Resistance, and Rescue during the Holocaust

What do different forms of anti-Semitic violence during World War II teach us about the comparative study of political violence? In this essay, we review three recent political science books about…
...

73 References

Retreating from the Brink: Theorizing Mass Violence and the Dynamics of Restraint

The research problem driving this paper is the absence of a strong theory that accounts for variation among cases that have similar probabilities of escalating to genocide and similar forms of…

Killing Neighbors: Webs of Violence in Rwanda

    D. Simon
    Political Science, Sociology
  • 2011
It remains an enduring challenge, both morally and academically, to comprehend how so many ordinary people could be mobilized to kill upwards of half a million fellow citizens during the Rwandan…

The roots of evil : the origins of genocide and other group violence

Pt. 1. Psychological and cultural bases of genocide and other forms of group violence: An introduction ; The origins of genocide and mass killing : core concepts ; The psychology of hard times : the…

Contested meanings and conflicting imperatives: A conceptual analysis of genocide

What is a genocide? That question is as essential for comparative analysis as it is difŽ cult to answer. To investigate common causes among similar cases—a presumptive goal of comparison—researchers…

The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda

Too often lost in these debates, though, are questions over our ethical obligations. Van Niekerk and Kopelman's edited volume brings together scholars from the worlds of economics, demography,…

Second-Generation Comparative Research on Genocide

Comparative research on the determinants of genocide has surged in recent years, as reflected in the six books under review. The new research makes genocide studies more systematic and theoretical;…

War and Genocide: Organised Killing in Modern Society

    M. Shaw
    Political Science, History
  • 2003
This comprehensive introduction to the study of war and genocide presents a disturbing case that the potential for slaughter is deeply rooted in the political, economic, social and ideological…

The Ontology of “Political Violence”: Action and Identity in Civil Wars

I discuss several conceptual problems raised by current understandings of political violence, especially as they pertain to actions, motivations, and identities in civil wars. Actions “on the ground”…

No Lessons Learned from the Holocaust? Assessing Risks of Genocide and Political Mass Murder since 1955

This article reports a test of a structural model of the antecedents of genocide and politicide (political mass murder). A case–control research design is used to test alternative specifications of a…

One-Sided Violence Against Civilians in War

This article presents new data on the direct and deliberate killings of civilians, called one-sided violence, in intrastate armed conflicts, 1989—2004. These data contribute to the present state of…
...

Related Papers

Showing 1 through 3 of 0 Related Papers