PHIL 456LEssentials of GMAP

Catalog

This course offers a comprehensive survey of major issues in the theory and practice of prevention measures as responses to threats of genocide and mass atrocities. The course is multi-disciplinary, including surveys of current theories of the nature, distinctiveness and origins of genocidal violence, and the development of the current regime of international law in which genocide bears a determinate legal status. The course also recapitulates the most influential instances in the legal prosecution of genocide and mass violence perpetrated by state agents, and assesses the role of law as one possible prevention mechanism. We examine social scientific methodologies (primarily empirical political science and psychological research programs) to assess how theoretical and quantitative analysis can contribute to identifying upstream risks, triggers, and alternatives. In addition, we examine in detail factors that can be used to generate predictions of levels of risk for specific populations for mass violence, such as political ideologies and imaginaries; institutional dynamics and change, the nexus of armed conflicts; gender; health; economic inequalities, and climate change. The seminar concludes with a systematic exploration and assessment of the current range of prediction and prevention mechanisms and approaches, including: diplomatic, arbitration and negotiation practices; human rights violation assessment and protection protocols; economic and global health policies and their role as potential prevention measures; international humanitarian military intervention and the doctrine of the Right to Protect and the controversial role of sovereign equality and doctrines of non-interference; the role of non-state actors in prediction and prevention; the rising profile of imaging, media, and communication technologies in genocide and mass atrocity prevention. This is a hybrid graduate/undergraduate seminar. For undergraduates, prerequisite is junior standing. *Simultaneously taught: PHIL 480A*/PHIL 580K/GMAP 480/GMAP 500/CCPA 480B/PAFF 568 (*denotes primary course)