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Why are forced displacement, ethnic cleansing and genocide an enduring feature of state systems? In this book, Heather Rae locates these practices of 'pathological homogenisation' in the processes of state building. Political elites have repeatedly used cultural resources to redefine bounded political communities as exclusive moral communities, from which outsiders must be expelled. Showing that these practices predate the age of nationalism, Rae examines cases from both pre-nationalist and nationalist eras: the expulsion of the Jews from fifteenth century Spain, the persecution of the Huguenots under Louis XIV, and in the twentieth century, the Armenian genocide, and ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia. She argues that those atrocities prompted the development of international norms of legitimate state behaviour that increasingly define sovereignty as conditional. Rae concludes by examining two 'threshold' cases - the Czech Republic and Macedonia - to identify the factors that may inhibit pathological homogenization as a method of state-building.
Sommario
Introduction; 1. State formation and pathological homogenisation; 2. The 'Other' within Christian Europe: state-building in early modern Spain; 3. State-building in early modern France: Louis XIV and the Huguenots; 4. Pathological homogenisation and Turkish state-building: the Armenian genocide of 1915-16; 5. 'Ethnic cleansing' and the break up of Yugoslavia; 6. Evolving international norms; 7. On the threshold: the Czech republic and Macedonia; Conclusion.
Info autore
Heather Rae is Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the Graduate Studies in International Affairs Program, Australian National University.
Riassunto
Victimization of ethnic and religious minorities has been used by rulers throughout history to assert their own control and legitimacy over communities brought together against alleged 'outsiders'. Rae demonstrates how these practices predate nationalism and how they prompted the development of international norms for legitimate state behaviour.
