Mila Dragojević
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781501739828
- eISBN:
- 9781501739835
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501739828.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This book examines how conditions conducive to atrocities against civilians are created during wartime in some communities. It identifies the exclusion of moderates and the production of borders as ...
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This book examines how conditions conducive to atrocities against civilians are created during wartime in some communities. It identifies the exclusion of moderates and the production of borders as the main processes. In these places, political and ethnic identities become linked and targeted violence against civilians becomes both tolerated and justified by the respective authorities as a necessary sacrifice for a greater political goal. The book augments the literature on genocide and civil wars by demonstrating how violence can be used as a political strategy, and how communities, as well as individuals, remember episodes of violence against civilians. It focuses on Croatia in the 1990s, and Uganda and Guatemala in the 1980s. In each case, it is considered how people who have lived peacefully as neighbors for many years are suddenly transformed into enemies, yet intracommunal violence is not ubiquitous throughout the conflict zone; rather, it is specific to particular regions or villages within those zones. As the book describes, the exclusion of moderates and the production of borders limit individuals' freedom to express their views, work to prevent the possible defection of members of an in-group, and facilitate identification of individuals who are purportedly a threat. Even before mass killings begin, the book finds, these and similar changes will have transformed particular villages or regions into amoral communities, places where the definition of crime changes and violence is justified as a form of self-defense by perpetrators.Less
This book examines how conditions conducive to atrocities against civilians are created during wartime in some communities. It identifies the exclusion of moderates and the production of borders as the main processes. In these places, political and ethnic identities become linked and targeted violence against civilians becomes both tolerated and justified by the respective authorities as a necessary sacrifice for a greater political goal. The book augments the literature on genocide and civil wars by demonstrating how violence can be used as a political strategy, and how communities, as well as individuals, remember episodes of violence against civilians. It focuses on Croatia in the 1990s, and Uganda and Guatemala in the 1980s. In each case, it is considered how people who have lived peacefully as neighbors for many years are suddenly transformed into enemies, yet intracommunal violence is not ubiquitous throughout the conflict zone; rather, it is specific to particular regions or villages within those zones. As the book describes, the exclusion of moderates and the production of borders limit individuals' freedom to express their views, work to prevent the possible defection of members of an in-group, and facilitate identification of individuals who are purportedly a threat. Even before mass killings begin, the book finds, these and similar changes will have transformed particular villages or regions into amoral communities, places where the definition of crime changes and violence is justified as a form of self-defense by perpetrators.
