Famine,genocide, and refugees

He has written widely on the subjects of genocide, famine, and refugees. He is co-author (with Frank Chalk) of The History and Sociology of Genocide: Analyses and Case Studies.     

The origins and dynamics of genocide

Abstract

Two of Michael Mann's recent books continue his exploration of the sources of social power and then extend it into the study of ethnic cleansing, a phenomenon which Mann wishes to see as a potential built into modern political institutions, and specifically democratic political cultures, from the start. However, this review argues that the richness of the empirical material mobilized in these books makes them more nuanced and sophisticated than Mann's own summary of them suggests.     

Democide and genocide as rent-seeking activities

Murder of the population by the state has been common historically and in modern times. I estimate a demand function for state-sponsored murder and find that it obeys the law of demand. The main focus of the paper is estimation of the change in the growth path of economies that practice democide relative to those that do not. On average, the rent-seeking loss associated with democide is about a 20 percent loss of wealth.     

Moral dilemmas and pedagogical challenges in teaching about genocide

Human Rights Review -     

Memorializing genocide: embodied semiotics in concentration camp memorials

Theorists have argued that the “attempt to comprehend” the genocidal event represented by Auschwitz has “defeated the intellects of countless men and women”. Memorials at Auschwitz and other concentration camps such as Dachau and Buchenwald, and to a certain extent those outside of Europe, such as Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek in Cambodia, are attempts to call attention to these atrocities in the hope of preventing the repetition of their like. Yet these projects, like all historical monuments and memorials, face the problem of a certain coldness and indifference caused by historical distance, consumerist culture and the seemingly abstract nature of historical images and documents. Concentration camp memorials are not entirely immune from these problems. However, in their use of an embodied semiotics invoking the visitor’s own body as a direct participant in immersive environments, sensory surfaces and displays, these memorials engage – not unproblematically – in a project to realize this history in visceral and concrete ways. This paper examines the semiotic strategies of the concentration camp as a technique of “embodying” suffering that is intended to counter the dissipation of affect in a media-saturated consumerist era.     

The politics of genocide scholarship: the case of Bangladesh

ABSTRACT

The massive communal violence that occurred in East Pakistan in 1971 received worldwide attention at the time, but has been largely ignored since. Some scholars and other writers have denied that what took place in Bangladesh was a genocide. Journalists’ reports, expatriate testimony, refugee reports and an investigation by the International Commission of Jurists in 1972 all indicate, however, that the Pakistani army did commit genocide in Bangladesh in 1971. The political and ideological circumstances that led to the secession of East Pakistan were conducive to religious and ethnic genocide. Beachler examines the treatment by memoirists and scholars of the 1971 crisis in East Pakistan and seeks to explain the reasons why the genocide in Bangladesh has been largely ignored since the early 1970s. No ideological or partisan faction in the United States has stood to gain much from the study of the Bangladesh genocide. And the governments of Bangladesh and Pakistan have not been interested in promoting study of the mass murder and rapes that took place in 1971.     

The role of individual states in addressing cases of genocide

Conclusion Overall, the leading Western states responded to genocide in the 1990s with too little, too late. Their political leaders chose a shortsighted strategy of denial, obfuscation, and deception rather than live, up to their solemn obligation to stop genocide. Humanity suffered greatly as a consequence. However, if genocide scholars can join and give direction to the ongoing debate within the national security community about how to prevent future Rwandas and Srebrenicas, then there is some hope that this new century may be less barbarous than the one we just left.     

The United Nations and genocide: Prevention,intervention, and prosecution

Conclusion The UN has to date not been effective in preventing genocide, and has had only a slightly better record in stopping it. There have been occasions when its interventions has occurred only after a genocide has taken place, and even then its major focus has been on facilitating the provision of aid by non-governmental agencies rather than on the task of tracking down the perpetrators and bringing them to justice. The exceptions of the ICTY and the ICTR are so stark, in this regard, that they only serve to throw light on the many other genocidal events where the UN has not initiated measures against those responsible for carrying them out. In short, as a body the UN has no—until very recently—even approached the fulfillment of its mandate as articulated in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and only rarely invoked Chapter VII of the UN Charter in order to intervene physically for the purpose of countering threats to peace or stopping conflict. Its strengths, so far as there have been any, have focused on balancing great power interests with demands to intervene more forcefully. While in the years up to 1989 this could be seen as a way of maintaining the peace (albeit over the broken bodies of victims of genocide in places such as Biafra, Cambodia, and East Timor), since then the UN has been required to act with greater resolve and purpose. The failures of Bosnia, Rwanda, and Kosovo must thus be seen as having been brought on by a transition from one international regime to another; from a Cold War regime in which the UN—s main role was one of preventing a third (and possibly nuclear) World War from breaking out, to a post-Cold War regime which appears increasingly to be characterized by the UN searching for a new role in which humanitarian issues are to assume a higher priority than they once did. Whether or not this will continue, of course, will depend on an extremely wide variety of circumstances—and at this time it is likely that only a few of these can accurately be anticipated.     

Ethnic Networks

Active research on a wide range of political contexts centers on ethnicity's role in collective action. Many theories posit that information flows more easily in ethnically homogeneous areas, facilitating collective action, because social networks among coethnics are denser. Although this characterization is ubiquitous, little empirical work assesses it. Through a novel field experiment in a matched pair of villages in rural Uganda, this article directly examines word‐of‐mouth information spread and its relationship to ethnic diversity and networks. As expected, information spread more widely in the homogeneous village. However, unexpectedly, the more diverse village's network is significantly denser. Using unusually detailed network data, we offer an explanation for why network density may hamper information dissemination in heterogeneous areas, showing why even slight hesitation to share information with people from other groups can have large aggregate effects.     

The report of The International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur: The question of genocide

The crisis in Darfur (Sudan), which sparked in February 2003, only caught the United Nations’ attention in Spring 2004. Questions emerged as to whether the conflict between the rebels and the government was simply insurgency warfare or, in fact, concealed a genocide carried out by the Arab, Muslim-led government against the Animist and Christian-African population. The issue became so divisive that the Security Council requested the creation of an investigation team, the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur, which amongst other tasks had to examine whether genocide had taken place. This article analyzes the facts as well as the legal reasoning that guided the International Commission of Inquiry in drawing the conclusion that a governmental policy to commit genocide had not been formed.