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 outlines a research agenda that analyzes the conditions under which genocide is likely to occur, the multilevel processes of violent escalation and de-escalation, and the ways in which these processes are shaped by, connect to, reinforce, accelerate and impede one another. I argue that scholars should 1) model elite and follower radicalization processes by disaggregating genocidal “intent” over time and space, and exploring how intent emerges rather than taking it as pre-given. Doing so will permit researchers to 2) situate genocide research within a broader context of political violence in order to understand how they are related temporally and spatially, and to decenter analytical domains beyond the standard country level and single victim group in order to gain insight into the dynamics of genocide, including how perpetrator policies vary by group; 3) draw on recent advances in microanalyses of civil war to theorize about subnational patterns of violence diffusion; 4) move beyond problematic contrasts between ideology and rationality to analyze how ideologies frame the strategic choices “available” to genocidal elites.
This essay outlines a normative theory of reparations for transitional democracies. The article situates the theory within current critical-theory debates on recognition and redistribution, and it argues that any model of reparations should aim to achieve what Nancy Fraser calls ''status parity.'' Such a model should be conceptualized according to a typology of acknowledgment along one axis (symbolic and material) and a typology of recipients (individual and collective) along the other. I conclude by identifying several key contributions that reparations can make to transitional societies.
This article examines the uses of official apologies for massive human rights abuses in the context of democratic transitions. It sketches a normative model of apologies, highlighting how they serve to provide some moral and practical redress for past wrongs. It discusses a number of contributions apologies can make, including publicly confirming the status of victims as moral agents, fostering public reexamination and deliberation about social norms, and promoting critical understandings of history that undermine apologist historical accounts. The article then presents certain normative criteria that any official apology must satisfy, and concludes with a discussion of several theoretical and practical challenges that apologies face in transitional contexts. It draws on Chilean President Patricio Aylwin's apology for his predecessor's crimes as an illustration of some of the promises and challenges that apologies face.
Over the past decades, post-atrocity justice debates have expanded their focus from the Nuremberg legacy of individual prosecutions to include a concern for a number of related issues. A great deal of the contemporary literature provides comparative assessments of the possibilities and limitations of trials and truth commissions, the viability of programs to consolidate the rule of law, and more explicitly normative explorations over the status and desirability of reconciliation and forgiveness. 1 There has been comparatively little work done, however, on reparations for victims of recent (rather than historical) conflicts. 2 The lack of conceptual clarity about what exactly reparations are for -are they meant to return victims to the status quo ante, serve as a moral repudiation of the past, enable once-oppressed groups to achieve self-actualization, or something else? -has meant that reparations programs risk becoming normatively confused and practically ineffective.This article clarifies the scope of reparations and their contributions by outlining a critical theory of reparative justice for transitional societies emerging from a recent history of political violence. As a critical theory, it seeks to provide a normative scheme for reparations that promotes policies furthering individual autonomy that are compatible with social justice and equality. It goes beyond liberal theory, as I will show, by emphasizing the fundamental intersubjective nature of reparative justice, from which certain types of policies follow. I anchor the theory within contemporary critical theory debates over recognition and redistribution. For the purposes of this essay, transitional democracies are nations emerging from a recent history of violence or authoritarian rule and moving in a broadly positive, liberal democratic normative direction. Reparations are understood as those policies and initiatives that attempt to restore to victims to their sense of dignity and moral worth and eliminate the social disparagement and economic marginalization that accompanied their targeting, with the goal of returning their status of citizens.The article begins by sketching Bernard Boxhill's influential liberal theory of reparations. I then move on to outlining a normative framework for understanding the goals of reparations, and argue for the necessity of both material and symbolic elements to work toward what Nancy Fraser has termed 'status parity.' Such parity requires that certain concerns about economic marginalization (objective conditions) and identity-based disparagement (subjective conditions) be addressed. Drawing from this, in the following section I outline the theory as consisting of four ideal-typical dimensions -'symbolic' and 'material' along one pole (concerned with the form of acknowledgement) and 'collective' and 'individual' along the other (regarding recipients). This four-fold rubric provides us with a clearer understanding of the possibilities and limitations of reparative measures. I illustrate these dimensions through a numb...
Abstract.This article examines several current risk assessment and early warning models to predict genocide and mass atrocities. Risk assessment (RA) concerns a country's long-term structural conditions (regime type, state-led discrimination, etc.) that determine overall risk for atrocities. Early warning (EW) focuses on short/midterm dynamics that can serve as triggers. The article evaluates contemporary RA and EW forecast modeling, and asks: How well can we predict mass atrocities and genocide? What are the strengths and limitations to current predictive modeling? Part I examines several quantitative (statistical) RA models and identifies several strengths and limitations in current research. Part II investigates a number of EW approaches, and also discusses their strengths and areas for further development. The article notes the impressive advances that have been made in the past fifteen years in RA and EW, but also counsels realistic expectations the possibilities of forecasting. Keywords
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