POLSCI 329S Chapter Notes - Chapter All: Counter-Insurgency, Ethnic Nationalism, Foregone Conclusion
11 May 2018
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Politics of Violence 10.25 Reading Notes
Fiona Xin – Scott Straus (Making and Unmaking Nations Chapter 1,2, and 3)
Chapter 1:
x Genocide: large-scale, group-selective violence
x Perpetrators command territorial domination over target populations, and local actors (harder for
national actors) have information necessary to identify and sort target populations
x National state involvement is necessary for genocide
x Purpose of genocide: eliminates future human interaction, perpetrators likely see target groups as
inherently dangerous, uncontainable, and unwinnable
x Conditions for genocide: territorial domination + local actor integration + large, multi-agency
operations + perception of groups as dangerous
x Individuals are targeted not because of their actions, but because of their categorical associations
(constructed)
x Group-selective
o Group usually defined as a social construct
o Requires mechanisms to define and sort groups
x Large-scale violence = recurring, repetitive, and systematic
o Requires some capacity to organize and sustain multi-agency, multi-level coalitions of violence
across time and space
o Vertical coordination – centralizes orders and planning across multiple agencies and locations
o Decentralized coordination – informal coalitions between national officials and agencies and
local actors on the other
x Group destruction
o Purpose of violence is to cripple permanently a group – not communicative violence
o Usual conception of violence – as a tool that shapes behavior and preferences by imposing
costs
o Conception of genocide – ot oeie, ut teial; ot to hage othes’ ehaios ut to
permanently change the population balance
x Logic of genocide
o 1. Organizing-level perpetrators conclude that future cooperation with the target group is
impossible
o 2. Organizing-level perpetrators calculate that the target population is uncontrollable and
uncontainable
o 3. Organizing-level perpetrators posit a present and persistent threat from the target group
x Genocide often correlates with wartime, but most wars do not produce genocide: why?
o 1. Genocide becomes a counterinsurgency measure because the state lacks capacity to
distinguish between insurgents and civilians
▪ Does not think this explanation is good – because genocide is group-selective and
requires a mechanism to sort the targeted population from the non-targeted population
o 2. Genocide is the final solution as part of a cycle of past attempts to rectify a problem when
the more moderate policies have failed in the past
▪ Requires that the target population be unwinnable, not containable, and inherently
dangerous
o 3. Genocide used as coercive-bargaining leverage over armed opponents, but maximally
punishing supporters of the opponents
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Document Summary
Fiona xin scott straus (making and unmaking nations chapter 1,2, and 3) Organizing-level perpetrators conclude that future cooperation with the target group is impossible: 2. Organizing-level perpetrators calculate that the target population is uncontrollable and uncontainable: 3. Organizing-level perpetrators posit a present and persistent threat from the target group x genocide often correlates with wartime, but most wars do not produce genocide: why: 1. Genocide is group selective violence irrespective of short-term strategic value of such violence: 4. Genocide is preemptive strategic logic and that the target population will be dangerous in the future if not eliminated: 5. Economic logic of genocide gaining access to desirable land and valuable resources: usually occurs with imperial expansion into lands with indigenous populations. Chapter 2: x genocide is nonteleological (not goal-direct); part of fluid decision-making that is dependent upon events and circumstances x process of escalation policy of genocide occurred over time: genocide was not the initial goal.
