Economic Aspects of Genocides, Other Mass Atrocities, and Their Preventions

Alongside other types of mass atrocities, genocide has received extensive scholarly, policy, and practitioner attention. Missing, however, is the contribution of economists to better understand and prevent such crimes. This edited collection by 41 accomplished scholars examines economic aspects of genocides, other mass atrocities, and their prevention. Chapters include numerous case studies (e.g., California's Yana people, Australia's Aborigines peoples, Stalin's killing of Ukrainians, Belarus, the Holocaust, Rwanda, DR Congo, Indonesia, Pakistan, Colombia, Mexico's drug wars, and the targeting of suspects during the Vietnam war), probing literature reviews, and completely novel work based on extraordinary country-specific datasets. Also included are chapters on the demographic, gendered, and economic class nature of genocide. Replete withresearch- and policy-relevant findings, new insights are derived from behavioral economics, law and economics, political economy, macroeconomic modeling, microeconomics, development economics, industrial organization, identity economics, and other fields. Analytical approaches include constrainedoptimization theory, game theory, and sophisticated statistical work in data-mining, econometrics, and forecasting.A foremost finding of the book concerns atrocity architects' purposeful, strategic use of violence, often manipulating nonrational proclivities among ordinary people to sway their participation in mass murder. Relatively understudied in the literature, the book also analyzes the options of victims before, during, and after mass violence. Further, the book shows how well-intended prevention efforts can backfire and increase violence, how wrong post-genocide design can entrench vested intereststo reinforce exclusion of vulnerable peoples, and how businesses can become complicit in genocide. In addition to the necessity of healthy opportunities in employment, education, and key sectors in prevention work, the book shows why new genocide prevention laws and institutions must be based onreformulated incentives that consider insights from law and economics, behavioral economics, and collective action economics.

"The editors do an excellent job of locating materials regarding certain painful spheres in one place for easier access to readings, reflections, and directions for the future. This book is a must read for all who seek to better understand these complex dynamics and work toward solutions...Recommended."--CHOICE"Besides writing, jointly or separately, several keystone chapters that provide perspective and coherence to the whole collection, the editors clearly worked hard on planning the overall design and reviewing the individual papers to minimize straying."--Journal of Economic Literature "The contributors interweave the human experiences of mass atrocities, genocides, and other aspects of crime with economic theory. The presentation is systematically comprehensive and engages a great mass of data, critical thinking, and great reflections. The editors do an excellent job of locating materials regarding certain painful spheres in one place for easier access to readings, reflections, and directions for the future. This book is a must read for all who seek to better understand these complex dynamics and work toward solutions." -- CHOICE"This volume builds a useful bridge between the worlds of mass atrocities and economic theory by presenting a comprehensive, systematic and easily-digestible analysis of key drivers, sustainers and consequences. Economic Aspects of Genocides, Other Mass Atrocities, and Their Prevention unveils six dimensions of interactivity (namely: choice, economic conditions, real economy, wealth appropriation, business organization and socio-economic fundamentals), which are expertly woven throughout the publication. These pillars are both illuminating and instructive for scholars and practitioners, who are continually challenged to grapple with the complex theoretical and empirical underpinnings of the economics-mass atrocities nexus, while also gleaning keen policy insights for prevention and post-disaster reconstruction. This book is a must-read for all who are seeking to better understand these complex dynamics and work towards solutions that are effective and enduring!"

Dr. Charles H. Anderton is Professor of Economics and the W. Arthur Garrity Sr. Professor in Human Nature, Ethics and Society at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA, where he has taught since 1986. His course offerings include the economics of war and peace and genocide and mass killing: perspectives from the social sciences. His research on war and peace has been published in a variety of journals and edited volumes in economics, international relations,and related fields.Dr. Jurgen Brauer is Professor of Economics, Hull College of Business, Georgia Regents University, Augusta, GA, and Visiting Professor of Economics, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. Specializing in defense and peace economics, he is co-founder and co-editor of The Economics of Peace and Security Journal.