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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

University of Massachusetts Boston

2005

Ethnicity

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Genocide: What Do We Want It To Be?, Alan A. Ryan Jr. Dec 2005

Genocide: What Do We Want It To Be?, Alan A. Ryan Jr.

New England Journal of Public Policy

The definition of genocide in the Genocide Convention has been universally accepted, in the statutes of the ad hoc international tribunals and the International Criminal Court, but it conceals a host of ambiguities. Sociologists, political scientists, and others have not devised any legally adequate substitute. This article proposes a non-linear definition of genocide, that is, a definition that takes into account the presence or absence of several factors, rather than one that attempts to generalize the crime of genocide. It disregards the motives or objectives of the perpetrator, sheds the secondary phenomena that often accompany genocide (such as dehumanization of …


Conflict Resolution, Nation-Building & Constitution-Making., Nicholas Haysom Dec 2005

Conflict Resolution, Nation-Building & Constitution-Making., Nicholas Haysom

New England Journal of Public Policy

Most of the current and intractable armed conflicts in the world today are intra-state conflicts in societies divided along the fault lines of race, religion, ethnicity, language, and region. These conflicts are overwhelmingly animated by identity. Even where such conflicts do not take on a violent form, they serve to prevent the emergence of interest-based politics in multi-cultural societies. The political systems in such nation-states -- and their national constitutions -- are required to address the way in which multiple identities can coexist within an inclusive national polity and alongside a national identity. This challenge faces both new democracies and …