State typology has been identified as one of the conditions which make genocide more likely. Under the democratic peace theory, it is believed that democratic states are less likely to engage in internal and external wars. In fact, Rummel (1995, p. 25) opines that the best way to prevent such acts of mass killing are to encourage “democratic openness, political competition, leaders responsible to their people, and limited government”. It is argued that totalitarian and autocratic regimes have historically been more likely to use genocide as a tool. This could be in part, due to the fact that these states do not have the same checks and balances on power in place that democracies do. Democratic states also place priority on the rights of minority
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Further, Staub emphasises the weight of the hardship individuals are faced with as a condition for genocide. He claims that when individuals are confronted with difficult life conditions they turn to scapegoating, that is, they claim that some other group is at fault for their suffering. Therefore, they become justified in “turning against and harming members of another group” (Staub 1999, pg. 305). It can also be said that segregated individuals in poor states are more inclined to revolt against the state over perceived inequality, and are therefore considered as such a significant threat to state power by perpetrators that it justifies the use of mass killing. While it is indisputable that some ethnic animosity existed between the Tutsi and Hutu in Rwanda, the severity of the genocide was likely escalated due to the hardship faced by civilians and the growing threat the Rwandan Patriotic Front posed to the power held by the Hutu. While the economic situation of a state may be of significance in the decision of the international community to intervene, economic hardship has often been limited to being only a contributing factor in the decision to commit genocide, not a primary cause (Gurr, 1994). Simply put, as Shaw (2015, p.397) states, “most economically …show more content…
The most classic example of an ideological genocide is that of the Holocaust. For Hitler, the Jewish population impeded on the successful creation of a pure Aryan master race. However, it would be wrong to suggest that anti-Semitism was the only justification for the Holocaust. Rather it was a combination of ideologies that fell under the political movement of Nazism. On Nazism, Bartrop (2014, p. 42-43) wrote, “through harnessing the power of an advanced industrial state to an ideology predicated on racial hierarchy, military power, expansion and social engineering, it rapidly showed itself to be harmful, bellicose, and a model of all genocide political
Further, Staub emphasises the weight of the hardship individuals are faced with as a condition for genocide. He claims that when individuals are confronted with difficult life conditions they turn to scapegoating, that is, they claim that some other group is at fault for their suffering. Therefore, they become justified in “turning against and harming members of another group” (Staub 1999, pg. 305). It can also be said that segregated individuals in poor states are more inclined to revolt against the state over perceived inequality, and are therefore considered as such a significant threat to state power by perpetrators that it justifies the use of mass killing. While it is indisputable that some ethnic animosity existed between the Tutsi and Hutu in Rwanda, the severity of the genocide was likely escalated due to the hardship faced by civilians and the growing threat the Rwandan Patriotic Front posed to the power held by the Hutu. While the economic situation of a state may be of significance in the decision of the international community to intervene, economic hardship has often been limited to being only a contributing factor in the decision to commit genocide, not a primary cause (Gurr, 1994). Simply put, as Shaw (2015, p.397) states, “most economically …show more content…
The most classic example of an ideological genocide is that of the Holocaust. For Hitler, the Jewish population impeded on the successful creation of a pure Aryan master race. However, it would be wrong to suggest that anti-Semitism was the only justification for the Holocaust. Rather it was a combination of ideologies that fell under the political movement of Nazism. On Nazism, Bartrop (2014, p. 42-43) wrote, “through harnessing the power of an advanced industrial state to an ideology predicated on racial hierarchy, military power, expansion and social engineering, it rapidly showed itself to be harmful, bellicose, and a model of all genocide political