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The Rwandan genocide has become a touchstone for debates about the causes of mass violence and the responsibilities of the international community. Yet a number of key questions about this tragedy remain unanswered: How did the violence spread from community to community and so rapidly engulf the nation? Why did individuals make decisions that led them to take up machetes against their neighbors? And what was the logic that drove the campaign of extermination?According to Scott Straus, a social scientist and former journalist in East Africa for several years (who received a Pulitzer Prize nomination for his reporting for the Houston Chronicle), many of the widely held beliefs about the causes and course of genocide in Rwanda are incomplete. They focus largely on the actions of the ruling elite or the inaction of the international community. Considerably less is known about how and why elite decisions became widespread exterminatory violence.Challenging the prevailing wisdom, Straus provides substantial new evidence about local patterns of violence, using original research-including the most comprehensive surveys yet undertaken among convicted perpetrators-to assess competing theories about the causes and dynamics of the genocide. Current interpretations stress three main causes for the genocide: ethnic identity, ideology, and mass-media indoctrination (in particular the influence of hate radio). Straus's research does not deny the importance of ethnicity, but he finds that it operated more as a background condition. Instead, Straus emphasizes fear and intra-ethnic intimidation as the primary drivers of the violence. A defensive civil war and the assassination of a president created a feeling of acute insecurity. Rwanda's unusually effective state was also central, as was the country's geography and population density, which limited the number of exit options for both victims and perpetrators.In conclusion, Straus steps back from the particulars of the Rwandan genocide to offer a new, dynamic model for understanding other instances of genocide in recent history-the Holocaust, Armenia, Cambodia, the Balkans-and assessing the future likelihood of such events.
Polemology --- Rwanda --- Genocide --- History --- Atrocities --- Ethnic relations. --- Génocide --- Atrocities. --- Histoire --- Atrocités --- Relations interethniques --- 840 Samenleving en staat --- 855.3 Genocide --- 881.2 Centraal-Afrika --- HISTORY --- Africa / Central --- History & Archaeology --- Regions & Countries - Africa
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Political sociology --- Internal politics --- Politics --- Sub-Saharan Africa --- Africa
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Genocide --- Rwanda --- History --- Atrocities. --- Ethnic relations.
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Remaking Rwandais the first book to examine Rwanda's remarkable post-genocide recovery in a comprehensive and critical fashion. By paying close attention to memory politics, human rights, justice, foreign relations, land use, education, and other key social institutions and practices, this volume raises serious concerns about the depth and durability of the country's reconstruction.
Human rights --- Internal politics --- mensenrechten --- Rwanda --- History --- Politics and government --- #SBIB:39A73 --- #SBIB:39A11 --- #SBIB:328H419 --- #SBIB:327.5H20 --- Etnografie: Afrika --- Antropologie : socio-politieke structuren en relaties --- Instellingen en beleid: andere Afrikaanse landen --- Vredesonderzoek: algemeen
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In Making and Unmaking Nations, Scott Straus seeks to explain why and how genocide takes place-and, perhaps more important, how it has been avoided in places where it may have seemed likely or even inevitable. To solve that puzzle, he examines postcolonial Africa, analyzing countries in which genocide occurred and where it could have but did not. Why have there not been other Rwandas? Straus finds that deep-rooted ideologies-how leaders make their nations-shape strategies of violence and are central to what leads to or away from genocide. Other critical factors include the dynamics of war, the role of restraint, and the interaction between national and local actors in the staging of campaigns of large-scale violence. Grounded in Straus's extensive fieldwork in contemporary Africa, the study of major twentieth-century cases of genocide, and the literature on genocide and political violence, Making and Unmaking Nations centers on cogent analyses of three nongenocide cases (Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, and Senegal) and two in which genocide took place (Rwanda and Sudan). Straus's empirical analysis is based in part on an original database of presidential speeches from 1960 to 2005. The book also includes a broad-gauge analysis of all major cases of large-scale violence in Africa since decolonization. Straus's insights into the causes of genocide will inform the study of political violence as well as giving policymakers and nongovernmental organizations valuable tools for the future.
Politics and government. --- Political leadership. --- Nation-building. --- Genocide. --- Genocide --- Nation-building --- Political leadership --- Cleansing, Ethnic --- Ethnic cleansing --- Ethnic purification --- Ethnocide --- Purification, Ethnic --- Crime --- Stabilization and reconstruction (International relations) --- State-building --- Political development --- Leadership --- Since 1960 --- Africa, Sub-Saharan. --- Africa, Sub-Saharan --- Africa, Black --- Africa, Subsaharan --- Africa, Tropical --- Africa South of the Sahara --- Black Africa --- Sub-Sahara Africa --- Sub-Saharan Africa --- Subsahara Africa --- Subsaharan Africa --- Tropical Africa --- Politics and government
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A provocative discussion of Africa’s development dilemmas and the policy options for addressing them.
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