Chalk, F. (1989) ‘‘Genocide in the Twentieth Century’: Definitions of Genocide and their Implications for Prediction and Prevention’

Chalk, F. (1989) ‘‘Genocide in the Twentieth Century’: Definitions of Genocide and their Implications for Prediction and Prevention’, Holocaust and Genocide Studies 4 (2), 149-160

1. Key issues: State as pepetrator – distinctiveness – intentionality – ideological motivation – NOT a continuous variable (Abstract)
2. Raphael Lemkin, Polish Jewish émigré, first came up with the term ‘genocide’ nad defined it as ‘the coordinated and planned annihilation of a national, religious or racial group by a variety of actions aimed at undermining the foundations essential to the survival of the group as a group’ (150).
3. RL was key driver behind UN’s Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. (‘GC’)
4. Aim of social scientists: protecting political and social groups not covered by the GC.
5. Research definition: “Genocide is a form of one-sided mass killing in which a state or other authority intends to destroy a group, as that group and membership in it are defined by the perpetrator” (151).
6. State as perpetrator: acts of omission are not covered by the GC, but should be.
7. Distinctiveness and intentionality: intentionality is persistence of policies known to lead to annihilation of a group by government and its citizens (154).
8. For some, intentionality is problematic because of modern structural forces that shape the character of the world (154); ‘relations of destruction’ instead (Tony Barta).
9. Can forms of social organisation be responsible for genocide?
10. Seamus Thompson: genocide as a’continuous variable’. No evidence for this. (155)
11. Structural issues lead to a ‘genocidal society’ argument.
12. “Systemic variables facilitate genocide, but it is people who kill” (156).
13. Role of ideology: “urge to purify the world through the annihilation of some category of human beings imagined as agents of corruption and incarnations of evil”. (157)
14. Key factors: role of state, intentionality, ideology; need to include social and political groups in definition.