Genocide and Mass Violence II

About the course

The genocide in Rwanda and the "ethnic cleansing" in former Yugoslavia at the end of the twentieth century came as a shock for many Western intellectuals. Gradually, they began to understand that these and other similar events had their roots in a failed transition from colonial and autocratic forms of government to democracy in the context of incomplete state and nation-building processes. It was also clear that the mass killings differed substantially when it came to perpetrator goals, the character of violence, the level of systematicity and death tolls, which lead to an increased interest in better understanding the political, economic, social and cultural contexts in which the violence happened.

This course gives you a deepened understanding of several cases of genocide and mass killing during the latter part of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Special attention is paid to de-colonisation and its effects, as well as to the importance of globalisation and the democratisation processes that followed the fall of communism. You will thus gain deepened knowledge about several research topics of central importance to understanding the character of genocidal violence, as well as its impact on the societies affected. These include the effect of different cultural, historical, political, ideological, gender-related and other identity-related aspects, as well as recent trends in the development of democratisation, human rights, transitional justice and international intervention.