Buch, Englisch, 352 Seiten, Format (B × H): 141 mm x 224 mm, Gewicht: 685 g
Reihe: The CERI Series in Comparative Politics and International Studies
The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide
Buch, Englisch, 352 Seiten, Format (B × H): 141 mm x 224 mm, Gewicht: 685 g
Reihe: The CERI Series in Comparative Politics and International Studies
ISBN: 978-0-231-14282-3
Verlag: Columbia University Press
How can we comprehend the sociopolitical processes that give rise to extreme violence, ethnic cleansing, or genocide? A major breakthrough in comparative analysis, Purify and Destroy demonstrates that it is indeed possible to compare the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina while respecting the specificities of each appalling phenomenon. Jacques Semelin achieves this, in part, by leading his readers through the three examples simultaneously, the unraveling of which sometimes converges but most often diverges.
Semelin's method is multidisciplinary, relying not only on contemporary history but also on social psychology and political science. Based on the seminal distinction between massacre and genocide, Purify and Destroy identifies the main steps of a general process of destruction, both rational and irrational, born of what Semelin terms "delusional rationality." He describes a dynamic structural model with, at its core, the matrix of a social imaginaire that, responding to fears, resentments, and utopias, carves and recarves the social body by eliminating "the enemy." Semelin identifies the main stages that can lead to a genocidal process and explains how ordinary people can become perpetrators. He develops an intellectual framework to analyze the entire spectrum of mass violence, including terrorism, in the twentieth century and before. Strongly critical of today's political instrumentalization of the "genocide" notion, Semelin urges genocide research to stand back from legal and normative definitions and come of age as a discipline in its own right in the social sciences.
Fachgebiete
- Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gewalt und Diskriminierung: Soziale Aspekte
- Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Gewalt Völkermord, Ethnische Säuberung, Kriegsverbrechen
- Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Internationale Beziehungen
Weitere Infos & Material
Foreward by Stanley HoffmannAcknowledgements
introduction: Understand?
I. The Imaginary Constructs of Social Destructiveness
Unpromising AvenuesThe power of imaginary constructsFrom the identity narrative to the figure of TraitorFrom the quest for purity to the figure of the Other in excessFrom the security dilemma to the destruction of the enemy
II. From Inflammatory Discourse to Sacrificial Violence
The intellectual springboardReaching political legitimacyFrom the religious to the sacrificialSocieties torn between adhesion, consent and resistance
III. International Context, War and the Media
A structure of political opportunitiesSpilling into warTelling the world: a last resort?
IV. The Dynamics of Mass Murder
The decision-making process and the deision-makersThe organisation of mass murder and the actors involvedFrom collective indifference to popular participationMorphologies of extreme violence
V. The Vertigo of Impunity
Crossing the threshold into violenceThe tipping mechanismThe dual learning process of massacreThe killers' profiles: revisiting 'the banality of evil'Sexual violence and other atrocities
VI. The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide
Instrumentalisations of a word that is impossible to define?Distancing genocide studies from the frame of lawDestroying to subjugateDestroying to eradicateDestroying to revolt
Conclusion: The 'Never Again" Refrain
Crisis prevention: arguments and illusionsAn ethics of responsibility'The revenge of passions'
AppendicesA. Investigating a massacreB. Comparing massacres
BibliographyNotesName IndexSubject Index
