Toward Empirical Theory of Genocides and Politicides

Identification and Measurement of Cases Since 1945

Bibliographic Data

ID5771987
AuthorsBarbara Harff (United States Navy), Ted Robert Gurr (University of Colorado Boulder)
Year1988
Volume32
Issue3
Pages359-359
Publication date1988-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Studies Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-8833 • E-ISSN: 1468-2478
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2600447
OpenAlexW2023889750
LanguageEN
Citations received142
References cited6

This paper reports on a global survey of cases of massive state repression since World War II. The universe of analysis includes sustained episodes in which the state or its agents impose on a communal or political group "conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or part." We develop and use a typology which distinguishes between two categories of genocide (in which the victim groups are defined primarily in terms of communal characteristics) and four types of politicide (in which victim groups are defined in terms of their political status or opposition to the state). Forty-four episodes meet the operational guidelines developed here. Analysis of their properties and distribution shows that they occurred in all world regions, but with relatively few European and Latin American cases. Two or more began in each five-year period after 1945, with some clustering in the period of African decolonization; their median duration was five years. Aggregate fatalities were between seven and sixteen million people, at least as many who died in all international and civil wars in the period

Development economics · Economics · Genocide · Opposition (politics · Period (music) · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · State (computer science) · Typology · World War II · Demography · Health and Conflict Studies · Law · Psychology of Social Influence · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence