Ideology and Mass Killing

Ideology and Mass Killing PDF Author: Jonathan Leader Maynard
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198776799
Category : Genocide
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
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 hatreds that motivate ideologically committed people to kill. But many other scholars are sceptical: contending that perpetrators of mass killing rarely seem ideologically committed, and that rational self-interest or powerful forms of social pressure are more important drivers of violence than ideology. In Ideology and Mass Killing, Jonathan Leader Maynard challenges both these prevailing views, advancing an alternative 'neo-ideological' perspective which systematically retheorises the key ideological foundations of large-scale violence against civilians. Integrating cutting-edge research from multiple disciplines, including political science, political psychology, history and sociology, Ideology and Mass Killing demonstrates that ideological justifications vitally shape such violence in ways that go beyond deep ideological commitment. Most disturbingly of all, the key ideological foundations of mass killings are found to lie, not in extraordinary political goals or hatreds, but in radicalised versions of those conventional, widely accepted ideas that underpin the politics of security in ordinary societies across the world. This study then substantiates this account by a detailed examination of four contrasting cases of mass killing - Stalinist Repression in the Soviet Union between 1930 and 1938, the Allied Bombing Campaign against Germany and Japan in World War II from 1940 to 1945, mass atrocities in the Guatemalan Civil War between 1978 and 1983, and the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. This represents the first volume to offer a dedicated, comparative theory of ideology's role in mass killing, while also developing a powerful new account of how ideology affects violence and politics more generally.

Ideology and Mass Killing

Ideology and Mass Killing PDF Author: Jonathan Leader Maynard
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198776799
Category : Genocide
Languages : en
Pages : 401

Get Book Here

Book Description
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 hatreds that motivate ideologically committed people to kill. But many other scholars are sceptical: contending that perpetrators of mass killing rarely seem ideologically committed, and that rational self-interest or powerful forms of social pressure are more important drivers of violence than ideology. In Ideology and Mass Killing, Jonathan Leader Maynard challenges both these prevailing views, advancing an alternative 'neo-ideological' perspective which systematically retheorises the key ideological foundations of large-scale violence against civilians. Integrating cutting-edge research from multiple disciplines, including political science, political psychology, history and sociology, Ideology and Mass Killing demonstrates that ideological justifications vitally shape such violence in ways that go beyond deep ideological commitment. Most disturbingly of all, the key ideological foundations of mass killings are found to lie, not in extraordinary political goals or hatreds, but in radicalised versions of those conventional, widely accepted ideas that underpin the politics of security in ordinary societies across the world. This study then substantiates this account by a detailed examination of four contrasting cases of mass killing - Stalinist Repression in the Soviet Union between 1930 and 1938, the Allied Bombing Campaign against Germany and Japan in World War II from 1940 to 1945, mass atrocities in the Guatemalan Civil War between 1978 and 1983, and the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. This represents the first volume to offer a dedicated, comparative theory of ideology's role in mass killing, while also developing a powerful new account of how ideology affects violence and politics more generally.

Why Not Kill Them All?

Why Not Kill Them All? PDF Author: Daniel Chirot
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400827329
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Genocide, mass murder, massacres. The words themselves are chilling, evoking images of the slaughter of countless innocents. What dark impulses lurk in our minds that even today can justify the eradication of thousands and even millions of unarmed human beings caught in the crossfire of political, cultural, or ethnic hostilities? This question lies at the heart of Why Not Kill Them All? Cowritten by historical sociologist Daniel Chirot and psychologist Clark McCauley, the book goes beyond exploring the motives that have provided the psychological underpinnings for genocidal killings. It offers a historical and comparative context that adds up to a causal taxonomy of genocidal events. Rather than suggesting that such horrors are the product of abnormal or criminal minds, the authors emphasize the normality of these horrors: killing by category has occurred on every continent and in every century. But genocide is much less common than the imbalance of power that makes it possible. Throughout history human societies have developed techniques aimed at limiting intergroup violence. Incorporating ethnographic, historical, and current political evidence, this book examines the mechanisms of constraint that human societies have employed to temper partisan passions and reduce carnage. Might an understanding of these mechanisms lead the world of the twenty-first century away from mass murder? Why Not Kill Them All? makes clear that there are no simple solutions, but that progress is most likely to be made through a combination of international pressures, new institutions and laws, and education. If genocide is to become a grisly relic of the past, we must fully comprehend the complex history of violent conflict and the struggle between hatred and tolerance that is waged in the human heart.

Mass Murder in the United States

Mass Murder in the United States PDF Author: Ronald M. Holmes
Publisher: Pearson
ISBN: 9780139343087
Category : Criminal psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book presents readers with a comprehensive and readable manuscript dealing with the social issue of mass murder. By examining each type of mass killer using the same format, the authors hope that readers will be able to distinguish between mass and serial murderers. Because looking at particular cases provides understanding as to the mentality and the mind of a mass killer, each chapter includes cases that illustrate the different types of mass killers. This coverage details the disciple mass killer, the family annihilator, the disgruntled employee mass killer, the ideological mass killer, the set-and-run mass killer, the disgruntled citizen mass killer, the psychotic mass killer, youthful killers in school shootings, and problems in mass murder investigation. For professionals in the fields of Criminal Justice, Sociology, Psychology, and Law Enforcement.

Final Solutions

Final Solutions PDF Author: Benjamin A. Valentino
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801467160
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
Benjamin A. Valentino finds that ethnic hatreds or discrimination, undemocratic systems of government, and dysfunctions in society play a much smaller role in mass killing and genocide than is commonly assumed. He shows that the impetus for mass killing usually originates from a relatively small group of powerful leaders and is often carried out without the active support of broader society. Mass killing, in his view, is a brutal political or military strategy designed to accomplish leaders' most important objectives, counter threats to their power, and solve their most difficult problems. In order to capture the full scope of mass killing during the twentieth century, Valentino does not limit his analysis to violence directed against ethnic groups, or to the attempt to destroy victim groups as such, as do most previous studies of genocide. Rather, he defines mass killing broadly as the intentional killing of a massive number of noncombatants, using the criteria of 50,000 or more deaths within five years as a quantitative standard. Final Solutions focuses on three types of mass killing: communist mass killings like the ones carried out in the Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia; ethnic genocides as in Armenia, Nazi Germany, and Rwanda; and "counter-guerrilla" campaigns including the brutal civil war in Guatemala and the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Valentino closes the book by arguing that attempts to prevent mass killing should focus on disarming and removing from power the leaders and small groups responsible for instigating and organizing the killing.

Ideology and Mass Killing

Ideology and Mass Killing PDF Author: Jonathan Leader Maynard
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019108266X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
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 hatreds that motivate ideologically committed people to kill. But many other scholars are sceptical: contending that perpetrators of mass killing rarely seem ideologically committed, and that rational self-interest or powerful forms of social pressure are more important drivers of violence than ideology. In Ideology and Mass Killing, Jonathan Leader Maynard challenges both these prevailing views, advancing an alternative 'neo-ideological' perspective which systematically retheorises the key ideological foundations of large-scale violence against civilians. Integrating cutting-edge research from multiple disciplines, including political science, political psychology, history and sociology, Ideology and Mass Killing demonstrates that ideological justifications vitally shape such violence in ways that go beyond deep ideological commitment. Most disturbingly of all, the key ideological foundations of mass killings are found to lie, not in extraordinary political goals or hatreds, but in radicalised versions of those conventional, widely accepted ideas that underpin the politics of security in ordinary societies across the world. This study then substantiates this account by a detailed examination of four contrasting cases of mass killing - Stalinist Repression in the Soviet Union between 1930 and 1938, the Allied Bombing Campaign against Germany and Japan in World War II from 1940 to 1945, mass atrocities in the Guatemalan Civil War between 1978 and 1983, and the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. This represents the first volume to offer a dedicated, comparative theory of ideology's role in mass killing, while also developing a powerful new account of how ideology affects violence and politics more generally.

Power Kills

Power Kills PDF Author: R. J. Rummel
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351497405
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
This volume, newly published in paperback, is part of a comprehensive effort by R. J. Rummel to understand and place in historical perspective the entire subject of genocide and mass murder, or what he calls democide. It is the fifth in a series of volumes in which he offers a detailed analysis of the 120,000,000 people killed as a result of government action or direct intervention. In Power Kills, Rummel offers a realistic and practical solution to war, democide, and other collective violence. As he states it, "The solution...is to foster democratic freedom and to democratize coercive power and force. That is, mass killing and mass murder carried out by government is a result of indiscriminate, irresponsible Power at the center." Rummel observes that well-established democracies do not make war on and rarely commit lesser violence against each other. The more democratic two nations are, the less likely is war or smaller-scale violence between them. The more democratic a nation is, the less severe its overall foreign violence, the less likely it will have domestic collective violence, and the less its democide. Rummel argues that the evidence supports overwhelmingly the most important fact of our time: democracy is a method of nonviolence.

Elite Rivalry, Mass Killing and Genocide in Authoritarian Regimes

Elite Rivalry, Mass Killing and Genocide in Authoritarian Regimes PDF Author: Eelco van der Maat
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040043917
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
This book explains how mass killing is driven by elite politics within authoritarian regimes. Mass killing and genocide defy reason and explanation. How can genocidal elites present defenceless victims as an existential threat? Why use indiscriminate killing that drives victims to coordinated resistance? Mass killing seems counterproductive, irrational, and therefore inherently ideological. By building on new insights on authoritarian politics, this book argues that mass killing is not ideological, but instead is a rational response to elite rivalry within authoritarian regimes. Mass killing is therefore not driven by rivalries between groups, but by elite rivalry within groups. In Rwanda, for example, the genocide was not driven by conflicts between Hutu and Tutsi, but by conflicts within the Hutu regime. The work demonstrates how mass killing helps elites build coalitions with groups that benefit from violence and how it divides support coalitions of rival elites. Mass killing can therefore help elites win dangerous internal rivalries. By qualitatively and quantitatively exploring elite rivalry and mass killing, this book provides a new explanation for a host of mass killings and genocides. It demonstrates that well-known genocides, such as the Rwandan and Cambodian genocides, which are seemingly ideological are instead better explained by elite rivalry. Mass killing is therefore not driven by the random madness of leaders, nor by the desire to kill an outgroup, but by the internal threats that authoritarian elites face. This book will be of much interest to scholars and students of civil wars, genocide, political violence, and International Relations in general.

Democide

Democide PDF Author: Rudolph J. Rummel
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9781412821476
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
This volume is part of a comprehensive effort by Professor Rummel to understand and place in historical perspective the entire subject of genocide and mass murder-what is herein called "Democide. "It is the third in a series of volumes published by Transaction, in which Rummel offers a comprehensive analysis of the 120,000,000 people killed as a result of government action or direct intervention. Curiously, while we have a considerable body of literature on the Nazi Holocaust, we do not have a total accounting-at least not until now with the issuance of "Democide. "In addition to the quantitative lacunae, there remains a paucity of theoretical information distinguishing the historical descriptive and the anecdotal accounts. This study of Nazi killings in cold blood is a path-finding effort in political psychology. While Rummel does not claim to give a definitive accounting, his explanation for the numbers reached-and they are high-is compelling. In addition, we now have a correlation of information on the murder of diverse groups: Jews, Gypsies, Poles, Ukranians, and even Germans themselves. It is now possible to fathom the Nazi genocidal poiicies-which were collective and which were selective. Rummel's volume is a clear guide to a murky past. It offers the first systematic effort to ascertain the nature and the extent of the Nazi genocide from the point of view of the perpetrator's aims rather than the victims' consequences. This is not a pretty picture, but it is not a partisan one either. The materials are presented in a clinical as well as a systemic fashion. Rummel has a deep sense of the life-saving instincts of individuals and the life-taking propensities of impersonal state machinery. It is thus, a humanistic effort, one that plumbs the effects of the Nazi war-machine on innocents in order to better understand present conditions. Professionals ranging from social scientists to demographers will find this a quintessential effort at political reconstruction.

The Problems of Genocide

The Problems of Genocide PDF Author: A. Dirk Moses
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107103584
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 611

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Book Description
Historically delineates the problems of genocide as a concept in relation to rival categories of mass violence.

Becoming Evil

Becoming Evil PDF Author: James E. Waller
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199774854
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
Social psychologist James Waller uncovers the internal and external factors that can lead ordinary people to commit extraordinary acts of evil. Waller offers a sophisticated and comprehensive psychological view of how anyone can potentially participate in heinous crimes against humanity. He outlines the evolutionary forces that shape human nature, the individual dispositions that are more likely to engage in acts of evil, and the context of cruelty in which these extraordinary acts can emerge. Eyewitness accounts are presented at the end of each chapter. In this second edition, Waller has revised and updated eyewitness accounts and substantially reworked Part II of the book, removing the chapter about human nature and evolutionary adaptations, and instead using this evolutionary perspective as a base for his entire model of human evil.