Contested meanings and conflicting imperatives: A conceptual analysis of genocide

Journal of Genocide Research

Volumn 3, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 349-375

  Straus, Scott ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 3042512731     PISSN: 14623528     EISSN: 14699494     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/14623520120097189     Document Type: Article

References (56)

1. Gallic, W.B., 1956. "Essentially Contested Concepts,". Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 56: 167–198. The label "contested concept" is borrowed from
2. Fein, Helen. 1990. "Genocide: a sociological perspective,". Current Sociology, 38 (1): 5 See collected fliers collected around Berkeley campus fall, 1999 and fall, 2000. Sloppy use of the word genocide is not just a contemporary phenomenon. In 1982, Jack Porter noted that genocide was applied to "race-mixing," drug distribution programs, birth control in the Third World, medical treatment of Catholics, and to the closing of Synagogues in the Soviet Union. Quoted in
3. Vergano, Dan. 2000. "'Darkness' shadows the pursuit of anthropology: scientists in Amazon accused of genocide, sexual exploitation,". USA Today, 2 October: 7D This is a reference to Western anthropology's alleged effect on the Yanomami
4. 2000. Patrick Tierney's book, Darkness in El Dorado, New York: Norton. however, excerpts of the book reprinted in the article do not use the word "genocide"; nor is "genocide" listed in the book's index
5. Redmond, Anthony. 2000. "Human rights in Burma,". The Irish Times, Letter to the Editor, October 12: 15 This is a reference to the experience of the Karen ethnic minority in Myanmar
6. Brzezinski, Zbigniew. 1999. "Génocide russe en Tchétchénie,". Le Monde, November 18: 1 "Stop Genocide" signs also were plastered in Paris metro stations in 1999 and 2000
7. Krauss, Clifford. 1998. "Britain arrests Pinochet to face charges by Spain,". New York Times, October 18: Al The Spanish case against Augusto Pinochet accuses him of genocide
8. House Editorial. 2000. "Cancel deal: World Bank should stop its planned loan to China,". Houston Chronicle, June 29: A32 This is a reference to "cultural genocide" in Tibet
9. House Editorial. 1999. "And now, Kosovo East,". Christian Science Monitor, September 7: 10
10. Ross, Amy. December 1999. "The body of the truth: truth commissions in Guatemala and South Africa," ”. December, Berkeley: University of California. The Guatemalan Truth Commission called that country's dirty war "genocide.", PhD dissertation
11. Clines, Francis. 1999. "NATO hunting for Serb forces; U.S. reports sings of 'genocide',". New York Times, March 20: Al In the first days of the NATO bombing of Kosovo, State Department officials accused Yugoslav forces of carrying out "genocide."
12. Thompson, Allan. 1999. "Canada aids 'genocide' in Iraq: ex-U.N. official,". Toronto Star, December 15 This is a reference to both United Nations sanctions against Iraq as well as acts of violence committed by the Iraqi regime against its citizens. For the former
13. Wren, Christopher. 1999. "Exile says U.S. plans genocide charges for Saddam Hussein,". New York Times, September 24: A3 for reference to the latter
14. Reeves, Eric. 2000. "A U.N. seat for genocide,". Washington Post, August 15: A23
15. Tlapoyawa, Ome Akatl. 2000. "Hispanic or indigenous? Stop 'demographic genocide' of native Americans,". Houston Chronicle, Outlook, September 17: 1 This is a reference to the Census Bureau's "Hispanic" demographic category, which the author argues amounts to the "demographic genocide" of Mexico's and Central America's indigenous groups
16. Gould, Andrew. 1999. "Conflicting imperatives and concept formation,". Review of Politics, 61 (3): 439–464. The label "conflicting imperatives" was introduced by Reinhard Bendix to describe concepts with contradictory goals, priorities, or motivations
17. Kuper, Leo. 1981. Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century, 22–23. New Haven: Yale University Press. To be sure, the Convention was not the first reference to "genocide" after the term was coined in 1944 (see below). "Genocide" was first officially recognized in the 1945 Nuremberg indictments of Nazi war criminals. German officials were accused of having "conducted deliberate and systematic genocide, viz., the extermination of racial and national groups, against the civilian populations of certain occupied territories in older to destroy particular races and classes of people and national, racial, or religious groups, particularly Jews, Poles, and Gypsies and others." However, subsequent Nuremberg judgments did not use the term. A 1946 judgment in Poland also used "genocide" to characterize extermination and cultural destruction, and a 1946 UN General Assembly resolution defined genocide as the "denial of the right of existence of entire human groups." On these points
18. 1995. An Intermediate Greek--English Lexicon: Founded upon the Seventh Edition of Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon, 162Oxford: Oxford University Press. These three synonyms for "genos" are given in
19. Lemkin, Raphael. 1944. Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, 79Washington: Carnegie Endowment.
20. Ibid..
21. Ibid, p 81..
22. Ibid..
23. Chalk, Frank, and Jonassohn, Kurt. 1990. The History and Sociology of Genocide: Analyses and Case Studies, 44–45. New Haven: Yale University Press. The Convention is reprinted, The Convention's text also can be found on the internet at
24. Ibid..
25. Chalk, Jonassohn and Chorbajian, Levon. 1999. "Introduction," ”. In Studies in Comparative Genocide, Edited by: Chorbajian, Levon, and Shirinian, George. New York: St. Martin's Press. For overviews of criticism of the UN definition
26. Andreopoulos, George. 1994. "Introduction: the calculus of genocide," ”. In Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimension, Edited by: Andreopoulos, George. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
27. Parhad, Rita, and Straus, Scott. 2000. "An emerging norm of humanitarian intervention? The case of genocide,". paper delivered at the 2000 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association. August312000, Marriott Wardman Park, Washington, DC. For an argument about the way in which definitional precision is crucial for effective institutionalization of norms, September 3, Paper available at
28. Chalk, Frank. 1994. "Redefining genocide," ”. In Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions, Edited by: Andreopoulos, George. 48Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
29. Charny, Israel. 1994. “ 'Toward a generic definition of genocide," ”. In Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions, Edited by: Andreopoulos, George. 91Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
30. Ibid..
31. Ibid, p 75..
32. Ibid, pp 77, 82, respectively..
33. Fein, Helen. 1999. "Genocide and gender: the uses of women and group destiny,". Journal of Genocide Research, 1 (1): 43–63. Fein also has written about women as victims of genocide
34. 1988. "Toward empirical theory of genocides and politicides: identification and measurement of cases since 1945,". International Studies Quarterly, 32 (3): Barbara HarffTed Gurr360 Harff and Gurr define genocides and politicides as "the promotion and execution of policies by a state or its agents which result in the death of a substantial portion of a group." They further distinguish genocide as acts where the "victimized groups are defined primarily in terms of their communal characteristics, i.e. ethnicity religion, or nationality
35. Horowitz, Irving Louis. 1997. Taking Laves: Genocide and State Power, 21New Brunswick: Transaction Books. Horowitz defines genocide as "a structural and systematic destruction of innocent people by a state bureaucratic apparatus., However, elsewhere Horowitz refers to genocide as "the physical dismemberment and liquidation of people on large scales, an attempt by those who rule to achieve the total elimination of a subject people" (p 81) and as "state-sanctioned liquidation of a collective group" (p 210)
36. Huttenbach, Henry. 1988. "Locating the Holocaust on the genocide spectrum: towards a methodology of definition and categorization,". Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 3 (3): 295 Huttenbach defines genocide as "the destruction of a specific group within a given national or even international population."
37. Katz, Steven. 1994. The Holocaust in Historical Context: The Holocaust and Mass Death before the Modern Age, Volume I, 131New York: Oxford University Press. Katz defines genocide as the "actualization of the intent, however successfully carried out, to murder in its totality any national, ethnic, racial, religious, political, social, gender or economic group, as these groups are defined by the perpetrator, by whatever means."
38. Melson, Robert. 1992. Revolution and Genocide: On the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust, 26Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Melson defines genocide as "a public policy mainly carried out by the state whose intent is the destruction in whole or in part of a social collectivity or category, usually a communal group, a class, or a political faction."
39. Staub, Ervin. 1989. The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence, 8New York: Cambridge University Press. Staub defines genocide as "an attempt to exterminate a racial, ethnic, religious, cultural, or political group, either directly through murder or indirectly by creating conditions that lead to the group's destruction." He differentiates genocide from mass killing as "the intention to eliminate the whole group."
40. Wallimann, Isidor, and Dobkowski, Michael. 1987. "Introduction," ”. In Genocide and the Modern Age: Etiology and Case Studies of Mass Death, Edited by: Walliman, Isidor, and Dobkowski, Michael. xviWestport: Greenwood Press. Advocates of this position are Isidor Wallimann and Michael Dobkowski, who claim that emphasis on intentionality is "too limiting" in an age of bureaucratized and structural violence
41. Barta, Tony. 1987. "Relations of genocide: land and lives in the colonization of Australia," ”. In Genocide and the Modem Age: Etiology and Case Studies of Mass Death, Edited by: Walliman, Isidor, and Dobkowski, Michael. 238Westport: Greenwood Press. Tony Barta also rejects intent in favor of an analysis of contexts and outcomes, Also see Huttenbach, op cit, p 294
42. Sharlach, Lisa. 2000. "Rape as genocide: Bangladesh, the former Yugoslavia, and Rwanda,". New Political Science, 22 (1): 89–102. In paragraph 289 of "The prosecutor versus Jean-Paul Akayesu case no ICTR-96-4-T," the decision refers to rape a method of preventing births within a target group. See, p 75. Elsewhere, the decision considers rape a method of inflicting serious bodily and mental harm. See paragraph 215, p 102. For other discussions of rape and issues that relate to gender and genocide, see Fein (1999), op cit; see also
43. Fein, Helen. "Scenarios of genocide: models of genocide and critical responses,". Toward the Understanding and Prevention of Genocide: Proceedings of the International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide. Boulder. Edited by: Charny, Israel. pp. 3–31. Westview Press. In addition to Fein's 1990 monograph
44. Smith, Roger. 1999. "State power and genocidal intent," ”. In Studies in Comparative Genocide, Edited by: Chorbajian, Levon, and Shirinian, George. 5–8. New York: St. Martin's Press.
45. Smith, Roger. 1987. "Human destructiveness and politics: the twentieth century as an age of genocide," ”. In Genocide and the Modern Age: Etiology and Case Studies of Mass Death, Edited by: Walliman, Isidor, and Dobkowski, Michael. 23–27. Westport: Greenwood Press.
46. Kuper, Leo. "Types of genocide and mass murder,". Toward the Understanding and Prevention of Genocide: Proceedings of the International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide. Edited by: Charny, Israel. pp. 32–47. Boulder: Westview Press. Kuper also uses the expression "genocidal massacre," but does not include this category in his 1984 sub-type classification, Charny proposes an additional category of "cultural genocide," which he disaggregates into ethnocide and linguicide; however, because he clearly distinguishes this from his concept of genocide (which for Charny refers to cases of mass murder) I have not considered this a sub-type of genocide. See Charny, op cit, pp 84-85
47. Mullins, Willard. 1972. "On the concept of ideology in political science,". American Political Science Review, 66 (2): 498–510. For a general statement on this
48. Chrétien, Jean-Pierre. 1995. Rwanda: Les Médias du Génocide, Paris: Karthala. For examples of this nationalism and brief analysis of it
49. Straus, Scott. 2001. "Organic purity and the role of anthropology in Cambodia and Rwanda,". Patterns of Prejudice, 35 (2): 1–17.
50. 1996. The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia Under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79, Ben KiernanNew Haven: Yale University Press. For overviews on Khmer Rouge killing patterns
51. Margolin, Jean-Louis. 1999. "Cambodia: the country of disconcerting crimes," ”. In The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, Edited by: Courtois, Stéphane. 577–635. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
52. Chandler, David, Kiernan, Ben, and Boua, Chanthou. 1988. Pol Pol Plans the Future: Confidential Leadership Documents from Democratic Kampuchea. 1976-1977, New Haven: Yale University Press. For references to eliminating real and imaginary threats, see the documents reprinted in, For a discussion of how an ideal of purity produces "invisible enemies," see Straus, op cit
53. Rummel, RJ., 1994. Death by Government, 31New Brunswick: Transaction Books. RJ. Rummel coined "democide" to refer to the "murder of any person or people by a government."
54. 2000. "Qu'est-ce qu'un crime de masse? Le cas de l'ex-Yougoslavie,". Critique Internationale, Winter: 143 Jacques Semelin proposes this term
55. Ibid, p 90..
56. Ibid, pp 80, 82-90..