IR466 Genocide (Half Unit) [Video]

Contributor(s): Jens Meierhenrich | This seminar course provides an introduction to the study of genocide. The course's disciplinary ambit ranges from anthropology to economics, from history to law, and from political science to sociology. Against the background of diverse disciplinary approaches, it explores major theoretical and empirical aspects of the role(s) of genocidal campaigns in international politics, inter alia, their origins, development, and termination; the manner of their perpetration, progression, and diffusion; their impact on the maintenance of international peace and security; their consequences for the reconstruction and development of states and the building of nations; and their adjudication in domestic and international courts and tribunals. Empirical cases to be discussed include Australia, Cambodia, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, East Timor, Nazi Germany, Guatemala, Iraq, Northern Ireland, the Ottoman Empire, Rwanda, Uganda, the Soviet Union, Sudan, and the former Yugoslavia, among others. The course is designed to equip students with the analytic tools necessary for making sense of the evolution of the international system from the nineteenth century to the present-and for critically assessing the promise and limits of responding to collective violence.