Mass killing

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Mass killing is a concept which has been proposed by genocide scholars who wish to define incidents of non-combat killing which are perpetrated by a government or a state. A mass killing is commonly defined as the killing of group members without the intention to eliminate the whole group, [1] or otherwise the killing of large numbers of people without a clear group membership. [2]

Contents

Mass killing is used by a number of genocide scholars because genocide (its strict definition) does not cover mass killing events in which no specific ethnic or religious groups are targeted, or events in which perpetrators do not intend to eliminate whole groups or significant parts of them. Genocide scholars use different models in order to explain and predict the onset of mass killing events. There has been little consensus [3] and no generally-accepted terminology, [4] prompting scholars, such as Anton Weiss-Wendt, [5] to describe comparative attempts a failure. [6] Genocide scholarship rarely appears in mainstream disciplinary journals. [7]

Terminology

Several different terms are used to describe the intentional killing of large numbers of noncombatants, [5] but there is no consensus or generally-accepted terminology. [8] [9] [10] [11] Mass killing has emerged as a "more straightforward" term than genocide or politicide. [12] Mass killing was proposed by genocide scholars in attempts to collect a uniform global database of genocidal events and identify statistical models for prediction of onset of mass killings. Atsushi Tago and Frank Wayman reference mass killing as defined by Valentino and state that even with a lower threshold (10,000 killed per year, 1,000 killed per year, or even 1), "autocratic regimes, especially communist, are prone to mass killing generically, but not so strongly inclined (i.e. not statistically significantly inclined) toward geno-politicide." [13] Other terms used by several authors to describe mass killings of non-combattents include:

In the United States, the Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act of 2012, passed in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, clarified the statutory authority for federal law enforcement agencies to provide investigatory assistance to the States, and mandated across federal agencies, including the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, a definition of "mass killing" as three or more killings during an incident, while making no reference to the choice of weapon. [28] [29] [30] [31]

Topology

Benjamin Valentino outlines two major categories of mass killings: dispossessive mass killing and coercive mass killing. The first category defines three types: communist, ethnic, and territorial, containing the following scenarios of ethnic cleansing, killings that accompany agrarian reforms in some Communist states, and killings during colonial expansion, among others. The second category includes the types: counterguerrilla, terrorist, and imperialist, containing the following scenarios of killing during counterinsurgent warfare, and killings as part of the imperialist conquests by the Axis powers during the World War II, among others. [32]

Topology of mass killings as defined by Valentino, 2003 [33]
TypeScenarioExamples [nb 2]
Dispossessive mass killing
CommunistAgricultural collectivization and political terrorThe Holodomor (1931–1933)
Great Leap Forward (1958–1962)
Cambodian genocide (1975–1979)
FascistPolitical terror and ethnic cleansingSpanish White Terror (1936–1975)
The Holocaust (1939–1945)
Argentine Dirty War (1974–1983)
EthnicEthnic cleansingTurkish Armenia (1915–1918)
The Holocaust (1939–1945)
Rwandan genocide (1994)
TerritorialColonial enlargementAmerican Indian Wars (15th–20th centuries)
Genocide of the Herero in German South-West Africa (1904–1907)
Expansionist warsGerman annexation of western Poland (1939–1945)
Genocide of the Herero in German South-West Africa (1904–1907)
Coercive mass killing
CounterguerrillaGuerrilla warsAlgerian war of independence from France (1954–1962)
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979–1989)
Ethiopian civil war (1970s–1980s)
TerroristTerror bombingAllied bombings of Germany and Japan (1940–1945)
The Blitz (1940–1941)
Starvation blockades/siege warfareAllied naval blockade of Germany (1914–1919)
Nigerian land blockade Biafra (1967–1970)
Sub-state/insurgent terrorismFLN terrorism in Algerian war of independence against France (1954–1962)
RENAMO terrorism in Mozambique (1976–1992)
AUC terrorism in Colombia (1997–2008)
ImperialistImperial conquests and rebellionsGerman occupation of Western Europe (1940–1945)
Japan's empire in East Asia (1910–1945)

Analysis

Benjamin Valentino does not consider ideology or regime-type as an important factor that explains mass killings, and outlines Communist mass killing as a subtype of dispossessive mass killing, which is considered as a complication of original theory his book is based on. [13] About why it occurs, [34] Valentino states that ideology, paranoia, and racism can shape leaders' beliefs for why genocide and mass killing may be justified. [35] Unlike Rudolph Rummel and first-generation studies, Valentino does not see authoritarianism or totalitarianism as explaining mass killing; [36] it is not ideology or regime-type but the leader's motive that matters and can explain it, [37] which is in line with second-generation scholarship. [37]

Manus Midlarsky also focuses on leaders' decision making but his case selection and general conclusions are different from Valentino's. Midlarsky has a more narrower definition of the dependent variable and only analyzes three case studies (the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, and the Rwanda genocide). Midlarsky tries to explain why individuals may comply with the culprits, why politicide rather than genocide happened in Cambodia (Cambodian genocide), and why ethnic minorities, such as Greeks in the Ottoman Empire and Jews in the Second Polish Republic, were not targeted for genocide. Like Michael Mann and Valentino to a lesser extent, Midlarsky mainly addresses genocides that did not take place. Both Midlarsky and Valentino mainly focus on proximate conditions, while Mann considers genocide within the broad context of ideologies and nation-states development. [38]

Global databases of mass killings

At least two global databases of mass killings are available. The first compilation by Rudolph Rummel covers a time period from the beginning of the 20th century until 1987 covering democide, while the second compilation by Barbara Harff combines politicide and genocide since 1955. The Harff database is the most frequently used by genocide scholars, while the Rummel database is a good framework for studying mass killings during the 1900–1987 period. [13]

These data are intended mostly for statistical analysis of mass killings in attempt to identify the best predictors for their onset. According to Harff, these data are not necessarily the most accurate for a given country, since some sources are general genocide scholars and not experts on local history. [17] A comparative analysis of the Yugoslav data in two databases revealed a significant difference between the figures of killed per years and low correlation between Rummel's and Harff's data sets. Tomislav Dulić criticized [39] Rummel's generally higher numbers as arising from flaws in Rummel's statistical methodology, and Rummel's response [40] was not convincing. [41]

Another comparative analysis of the two complete databases by Atsushi Tago and Frank W. Wayman revealed that the significant difference between the figures is explained by Harff's dataset of politicide-geoncide being essentially a subset of Rummel's dataset, where he includes other types of killings in addition to politicide-genocide. [13]

Genocides and politicides from 1955 to 2001 as listed by Harff, 2003 [19] [nb 3]
CountryStartEndNature of episodeEst. number of victimsRelated articles
SudanOctober 1956March 1972Politicide with communal victims400,000–600,000 First Sudanese Civil War
South VietnamJanuary 1965April 1975Politicide400,000–500,000 South Vietnam
ChinaMarch 1959December 1959Genocide and politicide65,000 1959 Tibetan uprising
IraqJune 1963March 1975Politicide with communal victims30,000–60,000 Ba'athist Iraq
AlgeriaJuly 1962December 1962Politicide9,000–30,000
RwandaDecember 1963June 1964Politicide with communal victims12,000–20,000
Congo-KinshasaFebruary 1964January 1965Politicide1,000–10,000
BurundiOctober 1965December 1973Politicide with communal victims140,000
IndonesiaNovember 1965July 1966Genocide and politicide500,000–1,000,000 Indonesian mass killings of 1965–1966
ChinaMay 1966March 1975Politicide400,000–850,000 Cultural Revolution
GuatemalaJuly 1978December 1996Politicide and genocide60,000–200,000 Guatemalan genocide
PakistanMarch 1971December 1971Genocide and politicide2,000,000–3,000,000 1971 Bangladesh genocide
UgandaDecember 1972April 1979Politicide and genocide50,000–400,000 Genocides in central Africa
PhilippinesSeptember 1972June 1976Politicide with communal victims60,000
PakistanFebruary 1973July 1977Politicide with communal victims5,000–10,000
ChileSeptember 1973December 1976Politicide5,000–10,000
AngolaNovember 19752001Politicide by UNITA and government forces500,000
CambodiaApril 1975January 1979Politicide and genocide1,900,000–3,500,000 Cambodian genocide
IndonesiaDecember 1975July 1992Politicide with communal victims100,000–200,000
ArgentinaMarch 1976December 1980Politicide9,000–20,000
EthiopiaJuly 1976December 1979Politicide10,000
Congo-KinshasaMarch 1977December 1979Politicide with communal victims3,000–4,000
AfghanistanApril 1978April 1992Politicide1,800,000 Afghanistan conflict (1978–present)
BurmaJanuary 1978December 1978Genocide5,000
El. SalvadorJanuary 1980December 1989Politicide40,000–60,000
UgandaDecember 1980January 1986Politicide and genocide200,000–500,000 Genocides in central Africa
SyriaMarch 1981February 1982Politicide5,000–30,000
IranJune 1981December 1992Politicide and genocide10,000–20,000 Casualties of the Iranian Revolution
1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners
SudanSeptember 1983 ?Politicide with communal victims2,000,000
IraqMarch 1988June 1991Politicide with communal victims180,000
SomaliaMay 1988January 1991Politicide with communal victims15,000–50,000
Burundi19881988Genocide5,000–20,000 Hutu massacres of 1988
Sri LankaSeptember 1989January 1990Politicide13,000–30,000
BosniaMay 1992November 1995Genocide225,000 Bosnian genocide
BurundiOctober 1993May 1994Genocide50,000 Burundian genocides
RwandaApril 1994July 1994Genocide500,000–1,000,000 Rwandan genocide
China1949 - 1976 ?Genocide - Politicide45,000,000
SerbiaDecember 1998July 1999Politicide with communal victims10,000

See also

Notes

  1. Charny 2000 defines generic genocide as "the mass killing of substantial numbers of human beings, when not in the course of military action against the military forces of an avowed enemy, under conditions of the essential defenselessness and helplessness of the victims." In the 2006 article "Development, Democracy, and Mass Killings", William Easterly, Roberta Gatti, and Sergio Kurlat adopted Charny's definition of generic genocide for their use of mass killing and massacre to avoid the politics of genocide altogether. [22]
  2. It is not a complete list of all examples.
  3. The list does not include deaths from the Great Chinese Famine and the Great Leap Forward.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Democide</span> Legal murder of unarmed persons by government agents

Democide refers to "the intentional killing of an unarmed or disarmed person by government agents acting in their authoritative capacity and pursuant to government policy or high command." The term was first coined by Holocaust historian and statistics expert, R.J. Rummel in his book Death by Government, but has also been described as a better term than genocide to refer to certain types of mass killings, by renowned Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer. According to Rummel, this definition covers a wide range of deaths, including forced labor and concentration camp victims, extrajudicial summary killings, and mass deaths due to governmental acts of criminal omission and neglect, such as in deliberate famines like the Holodomor, as well as killings by de facto governments, for example, killings during a civil war. This definition covers any murder of any number of persons by any government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Genocide</span> Intentional destruction of a people

Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people in whole or in part.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethnic cleansing</span> Systematic removal of a certain ethnic or religious group

Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer, it also includes indirect methods aimed at forced migration by coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction. There is significant scholarly disagreement around the definition of ethnic cleansing and which events fall under this classification.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rudolph Rummel</span> American political scientist (1932–2014)

Rudolph Joseph Rummel was an American political scientist and professor at the Indiana University, Yale University, and University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. He spent his career studying data on collective violence and war with a view toward helping their resolution or elimination. Contrasting genocide, Rummel coined the term democide for murder by government, such as the genocide of indigenous peoples and colonialism, Nazi Germany, the Stalinist purges, Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, and other authoritarian, totalitarian, or undemocratic regimes, coming to the conclusion that democratic regimes result in the least democides.

The actions by governments of communist states have been subject to criticism across the political spectrum. Communist party rule has been especially criticized by anti-communists and right-wing critics, but also by other socialists such as anarchists, trotskyists, democratic socialists, libertarian socialists and orthodox Marxists. Ruling communist parties have also been challenged by domestic dissent. According to the critics, rule by communist parties has often led to totalitarianism, political repression, restrictions of human rights, poor economic performance, and cultural and artistic censorship.

Communism is a left-wing to far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products to everyone in the society based on need. A communist society would entail the absence of private property and social classes, and ultimately money and the state.

Political cleansing of a population is the elimination of categories of people in specific areas for political reasons. The means may vary from forced migration to genocide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mass killings under communist regimes</span>

Mass killings under communist regimes occurred through a variety of means during the 20th century, including executions, famine, deaths through forced labour, deportation, starvation, and imprisonment. Some of these events have been classified as genocides or crimes against humanity. Other terms have been used to describe these events, including classicide, democide, red holocaust, and politicide. The mass killings have been studied by authors and academics and several of them have postulated the potential causes of these killings along with the factors which were associated with them. Some authors have tabulated a total death toll, consisting of all of the excess deaths which cumulatively occurred under the rule of communist states, but these death toll estimates have been criticized. Most frequently, the states and events which are studied and included in death toll estimates are the Holodomor and the Great Purge in the Soviet Union, the Great Chinese Famine and the Cultural Revolution in the People's Republic of China, and the Cambodian genocide in Democratic Kampuchea.

Barbara Harff is professor of political science emerita at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. In 2003 and again in 2005 she was a distinguished visiting professor at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University. Her research focuses on the causes, risks, and prevention of genocidal violence.

Classicide is a concept proposed by sociologist Michael Mann to describe the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of a social class through persecution and violence. Although it was first used by physician and anti-communist activist Fred Schwarz in 1972, classicide was popularized by Mann as a term that is similar to but distinct from genocide because it means the "intended mass killing of entire social classes." Classicide is considered a form of "premeditated mass killing", which is narrower than genocide, because the target of a classicide is a part of a population which is defined by its social status, and classicide is also considered broader than politicide because the group which is targeted for classicide is killed without any concern for its political activities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Risk factors for genocide</span> Signs of active or impending genocide

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Genocide studies</span> Academic field of study that researches genocide

Genocide studies is an academic field of study that researches genocide. Genocide became a field of study in the mid-1940s, with the work of Raphael Lemkin, who coined genocide and started genocide research, and its primary subjects were the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust; the Holocaust was the primary subject matter of genocide studies, starting off as a side field of Holocaust studies, and the field received an extra impetus in the 1990s, when the Rwandan genocide occurred. It received further attraction in the 2010s through the formation of a gender field.

Benjamin Andrew Valentino is a political scientist and professor at Dartmouth College. His 2004 book Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century, adapted from his PhD thesis and published by Cornell University Press, has been reviewed in several academic journals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">War and genocide</span> Connection between the fields of Genocide and warfare

War and genocide studies is an interdisciplinary subject that identifies and analyzes the relationship between war and genocide, as well as the structural foundations of associated conflicts. Disciplines involved may include political science, geography, economics, sociology, international relations, and history.

<i>Final Solutions</i> 2003 book

Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century is a 2003 book by Benjamin Valentino on the political factors of mass killing and genocide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Genocides in history</span> Overview of genocide in a historical context

Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group. The term was coined in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin. It is defined in Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) of 1948 as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group's conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

This is a select annotated bibliography of scholarly English language books and journal articles about the subject of genocide studies; for bibliographies of genocidal acts or events, please see the See also section for individual articles. A brief selection of English translations of primary sources is included for items related to the development of genocide studies. Book entries may have references to journal articles and reviews as annotations. Additional bibliographies can be found in many of the book-length works listed below; see Further Reading for several book and chapter-length bibliographies. The External links section contains entries for publicly available materials on the development of genocide studies.

Below is an outline of articles on the academic field of genocide studies and subjects closely and directly related to the field of genocide studies; this is not an outline of acts or events related to genocide or topics loosely or sometimes related to the field of genocide studies. The Event outlines section contains links to outlines of acts of genocide.

References

  1. Staub 1989, p. 8: "Mass killing means killing members of a group without the intention to eliminate the whole group or killing large numbers of people without a precise definition of group membership."
  2. Staub 2011, p. 100: "In contrast to genocide, I see mass killing as 'killing (or in other ways destroying) members of a group without the intention to eliminate the whole group, or killing large numbers of people' without a focus on group membership."
  3. Krain 1997.
  4. Valentino 2004.
  5. 1 2 Stone 2008, p. 2.
  6. Weiss-Wendt 2008.
  7. Verdeja 2012.
  8. Krain 1997, pp. 331–332: "The literatures on state-sponsored mass murder and state terrorism have been plagued by definitional problems."
  9. Valentino 2004, p. 6: "No generally accepted terminology exists to describe the intentional killing of large numbers of noncombatants."
  10. Weiss-Wendt 2008, p. 42: "There is barely any other field of study that enjoys so little consensus on defining principles such as definition of genocide, typology, application of a comparative method, and timeframe."
  11. Verdeja 2012, p. 307: "Although the field has grown enormously over the past decade and a half, genocide scholarship still rarely appears in mainstream disciplinary journals."
  12. Ott 2011, p. 53: "As is customary in the literature on mass killing of civilians there is a need to restate here what mass killing is about. Although many definitions have been used — 'genocide', 'politicide' and 'democide' — there has emerged a sort of consensus that the term 'mass killing' is much more straightforward than either genocide or politicide."
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Tago & Wayman 2010.
  14. Mann 2005, p. 17.
  15. Sémelin 2007, p. 37.
  16. La Puma, John (1987-05-01). "Gendercide: The Implications of Sex Selection". JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association. 257 (17): 2362. doi:10.1001/jama.1987.03390170118043. ISSN   0098-7484.
  17. 1 2 3 4 Harff 2017.
  18. Harff 1996.
  19. 1 2 Harff 2003.
  20. Curthoys & Docker 2008, p. 7.
  21. Schaak 1997; Schabas 2009, p. 160; Jones 2010, p. 137.
  22. Easterly, Gatti & Kurlat 2006.
  23. 1 2 Esteban, Morelli & Rohner 2010.
  24. Valentino 2004, p. 91.
  25. Bach-Lindsday, Huth & Valentino 2004, p. 387.
  26. Tago & Wayman 2010, pp. 4, 11–12.
  27. Gurr & Harff 1988.
  28. Krouse, William J.; Richardson, Daniel J. (July 30, 2015). Mass Murder with Firearms: Incidents and Victims, 1999–2013 (PDF) (Report). Congressional Research Service. p. 26.
  29. Booty, Marisa; O’Dwyer, Jayne; Webster, Daniel; McCourt, Alex; Crifasi, Cassandra (2019). "Describing a "mass shooting": the role of databases in understanding burden". Injury Epidemiology. 6 (47): 47. doi: 10.1186/s40621-019-0226-7 . PMC   6889601 . PMID   31828004.
  30. Ye Hee Lee, Michelle (December 3, 2015). "Obama's inconsistent claim on the 'frequency' of mass shootings in the U.S. compared to other countries". Washington Post . Archived from the original on March 5, 2021. Retrieved April 9, 2021.
  31. Albright, Mandi (March 17, 2021). "Spa killings another grisly chapter in Georgia history". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution .
  32. Straus 2007, p. 116: "Among them, Valentino identifies two major types, each with three subtypes. The first major type is 'dispossessive mass killing,' which includes (1) 'communist mass killings' in which leaders seek to transform societies according to communist principles; (2) 'ethnic mass killings,' in which leaders forcibly remove an ethnic population; and (3) mass killing as leaders acquire and repopulate land. The second major type of mass killing is 'coercive mass killing,' which includes (1) killing in wars when leaders cannot defeat opponents using conventional means; (2) 'terrorist' mass killing when leaders use violence to force an opposing side to surrender; and (3) killing during the creation of empires when conquering leaders try to defeat resistance and intimidate future resistance."
  33. Valentino 2004, p. 70.
  34. Valentino 2004, p. 60: "I content mass killing occurs when powerful groups come to believe it is the best available means to accomplish certain radical goals, counter specific types of threats, or solve difficult military problem." See also p. 70 to read Valentino outlining his proposed two major categories of mass killing.
  35. Straus 2007, pp. 484–485: "Valentino makes a quite different argument. The pivot of his cogent and parsimonious analysis is that genocide and mass killing emerge from the strategic calculations of leaders—that genocide and mass killing are calculated, instrumental, and deliberate policies that leaders choose to accomplish certain goals. ... A key question for Valentino is why leaders would choose the strategy of genocide and mass killing. Valentino argues that ideology, racism, and paranoia can shape why leaders believe that genocide and mass killing is the right course of action."
  36. Tago & Wayman 2010, p. 5: "Disagreeing with Rummel's finding that authoritarian and totalitarian government explains mass murder, Valentino (2004) argues that regime type does not matter; to Valentino the crucial thing is the motive for mass killing (Valentino, 2004: 70). He divides motive into the two categories of dispossessive mass killing (as in ethnic cleansing, colonial enlargement, or collectivization of agriculture) and coercive mass killing (as in counter-guerrilla, terrorist, and Axis imperialist conquests)."
  37. 1 2 Straus 2007.
  38. Straus 2007, pp. 485–486.
  39. Dulić 2004.
  40. Rummel 2004.
  41. Gleditish 2017, p. 10.

Bibliography

Further reading