Theory Quiz Study Guide: Genocide Definitions, Macro/Micro Theories, and Key Concepts

Quiz Overview and Format

  • Date and Location: The theory quiz takes place in lecture on Friday, October 2.
  • Grading and Question Count: The quiz contains 20 questions total, with each question worth 1 point.
  • Question Type Breakdown:
    • 8 multiple choice questions
    • 7 "true or false" statements
    • 5 Identifications (short answers)
  • Scope of Content: All questions and identification terms are drawn directly from course lectures and readings covered in weeks 2 through 4.
  • Primary Thematic Focus Areas:
    • Definitions of genocide
    • Macro theories of genocide
    • Micro theories of genocide

Study Guide: Multiple Choice and True/False Questions

  • Macro-Theories vs. Micro-Theories of Genocide:

    • What Macro-Theories Explain: Macro-theories focus on large-scale, structural, institutional, ideological, and political conditions. They explain why genocide occurs at particular historical moments, within specific state regimes, or during major structural crises (e.g., state-making, total war, political revolution, imperial collapse).
    • What Macro-Theories Cannot Explain: Macro-theories cannot explain individual participation or individual variation in behavior. They fail to explain why individual ordinary citizens choose to become active perpetrators, how specific people overcome moral inhibitions against murder, or why some individuals choose to rescue victims while others participate or remain bystanders.
    • What Micro-Theories Explain: Micro-theories examine social psychology, individual motivations, situational dynamics, small-group pressure, and authority dynamics. They explain how ordinary human beings are transformed into perpetrators, why they commit acts of cruelty, and how peer pressure and authority operate on the ground.
    • What Micro-Theories Cannot Explain: Micro-theories cannot explain macro-level political outcomes, historical timing, state policy decisions, or why a state authority initiates genocide in one historical context rather than another.

  • Democracy, Democide, and Power Concentration (R. J. Rummel):

    • Relationship between Democracy and Genocide: According to R. J. Rummel, democratic regimes are far less likely to commit genocide or democide compared to non-democratic regimes. Rummel asserts that democratic power is dispersed, checked, and accountable, whereas concentration of absolute power in authoritarian or totalitarian states promotes state-sponsored mass murder ("power kills; absolute power kills absolutely").

  • Perpetrator Psychology and Social Experiments:

    • James Waller on Collectivities and Evil: James Waller addresses whether social collectivities drive ordinary people to commit extraordinary evil, focusing on how group dynamics, situational influences, and ideological contexts alter individual moral constraints.
    • Stanley Milgram's Experiment on Obedience to Authority:
    • Findings: Demonstrates that a surprisingly high proportion of ordinary people will follow orders from an established authority figure to administer severe, potentially lethal shocks to an innocent person.
    • Course Relevance: Shows how deference to legal-rational authority, diffusion of responsibility, and step-by-step commitment enable ordinary citizens to follow state directives to kill targeted groups in genocides.
    • Phillip Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment:
    • Main Conclusion: Strong situational contexts, de-individuation, and social roles can override individual morality, leading ordinary people to abuse and dehumanize those under their power.
    • Cruelty, Degradation, and Perpetrator Emotion:
    • Purpose of Cruelty and Degradation: Perpetrators do not merely kill; they frequently humiliate, torture, and degrade victims to enforce total dominance, dehumanize the victims to justify the killing, overcome personal internal prohibitions against violence, and build group solidarity.
    • Key Emotions in Perpetrator Psychology: Emotions that loom large include fear, deep-seated hatred, ideological zeal, moral indignation, disgust, resentment, and a desire for peer acceptance within perpetrator units.

  • War, State-Making, Imperialism, and Settler-Colonialism:

    • Genocide and War (Adam Jones): War acts as the supreme driver, context, and catalyst for genocide. War radicalizes political leadership, habituates populations to mass death, provides cover under national security, fosters existential fear, and lowers logistical and moral barriers to total destruction.
    • State-Making and Genocide: Centralizing state power involves enforcing political, cultural, or ethnic uniformity within defined territorial borders. The elimination or forced displacement of minority populations is frequently used as a tool to establish homogeneous national identity.
    • Imperial Expansion and Genocide: Imperialism involves subjugating foreign populations and extracting resources. Conquest and domination routinely employ mass violence and forced displacement against native populations who resist imperial control.
    • Settler-Colonialism (Adam Jones):
    • Significance: Settler-colonialism is highlighted by Adam Jones as an especially critical subtype of imperialism because settlers arrive with the explicit purpose of acquiring territory and permanently occupying the land.
    • Importance in Imperial Genocide: Unlike exploitation colonialism (which seeks to exploit native labor), settler-colonialism operates under a "logic of elimination." Indigenous peoples are viewed as obstacles to land acquisition and must be removed, replaced, or exterminated.

Identifications and Short Answer Guidelines

  • Exam Rules for Short Answers:
    • Exactly 5 identification terms from the master list of 10 will appear on the quiz.
    • No identification terms outside of this official 10-item list will be included on the exam.
  • Structure of a Model Response:
    • Define the term briefly (1–2 lines describing who, what, or when).
    • Explicitly explain its relevance to the course content (connecting it to macro/micro theories, definitions, or specific concepts).
    • Target length per identification answer is approximately 3 sentences.
  • Sample Identification Response (Adolf Eichmann / Adolph Eichmann):
    • Adolf Eichmann was a high-ranking Nazi SS officer who organized the logistical mass deportation of Jews to extermination camps during the Holocaust. In the course, his case was discussed in the context of micro-theories of genocide and perpetrator psychology. His trial and actions raise fundamental questions regarding the "banality of evil" and how ordinary bureaucratic individuals participate in extraordinary state violence.

Master Identification Terms

  • Democide:

    • Definition: A concept formulated by R. J. Rummel defined as the intentional killing of any person or people by a government, encompassing genocide, politicide, and mass murder.
    • Relevance: Central to macro-theories of genocide, demonstrating how unchecked state power and totalitarian political structures serve as primary causes of government mass killing.

  • Adolph Eichmann (Adolf Eichmann):

    • Definition: A key Nazi SS official who managed the transportation logistics for sending millions of victims to concentration and death camps during World War II.
    • Relevance: Utilized in micro-theories of genocide to study perpetrator motivation, administrative violence, and the social-psychological processes enabling ordinary individuals to perform genocidal tasks.

  • "We Charge Genocide":

    • Definition: A historic petition submitted to the United Nations in 1951 by the Civil Rights Congress, documenting systematic lynching, racially motivated violence, and oppression against Black Americans as genocide under international law.
    • Relevance: Important for analyzing broader applications of Raphael Lemkin's genocide concept, state accountability, and domestic racial violence within legal and historical frameworks.

  • Raphael Lemkin:

    • Definition: A Polish-Jewish lawyer who created the word "genocide" in 1944 and spearheaded the creation of the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
    • Relevance: The foundational figure in genocide studies; his definition established the initial legal, conceptual, and political boundaries for identifying attempts to destroy national, ethnic, racial, or religious groups.

  • "Hitler's Willing Executioners":

    • Definition: A prominent 1996 book by historian Daniel Jonah Goldhagen claiming that ordinary Germans willingly participated in the Holocaust due to a unique, culturally pervasive "eliminationist anti-Semitism."
    • Relevance: Studied under micro-theories of genocide regarding perpetrator motivation, serving as a contrast to situational or social-psychological theories by emphasizing deep ideological conviction.

  • The Sand Creek Massacre:

    • Definition: An 1864 attack by U.S. volunteer cavalry troops against a peaceful village of Cheyenne and Arapaho people in Colorado Territory, killing and mutilating over 150 mostly women, children, and elderly people.
    • Relevance: Examined as a clear historical instance of settler-colonial violence, illustrating how territorial acquisition and imperial expansion drive genocidal acts against Indigenous populations.

  • Einsatzgruppen:

    • Definition: Nazi SS mobile killing units that followed the German army into Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during World War II to conduct mass shootings of Jewish populations, Romani, and political enemies.
    • Relevance: Represents direct, face-to-face executioners in wartime, bridging macro-level state war policies with micro-level perpetrator dynamics and mass violence.

  • The Congo "Rubber Terror":

    • Definition: A regime of extreme violence, forced labor, mutilation, and mass death in the Congo Free State under the personal rule of King Leopold II of Belgium (1885–1908) during the wild rubber extraction boom.
    • Relevance: Serves as a primary case study of imperial expansion, colonial exploitation, and democide driven by economic greed and extreme structural power imbalance.

  • R. J. Rummel:

    • Definition: A political scientist who developed the concept of democide and conducted extensive quantitative research on state-sponsored mass murder across history.
    • Relevance: Key figure in macro-theories of genocide; formulated the thesis that democratic regime types minimize democide, while concentrated authoritarian power exponentially increases state murder.

  • Settler-Colonialism:

    • Definition: A specific system of imperial expansion where foreign colonizers permanently settle on land, seeking to replace or eliminate Indigenous populations rather than merely exploiting their labor.
    • Relevance: Highlighted by Adam Jones as a crucial macro-level driver of genocide, explaining how the territorial "logic of elimination" leads directly to mass killing and cultural destruction.