WHAT ROLE DOES POLITICAL LEADERSHIP

PLAY IN MASS-VIOLENCE

THE BIG QUESTIONS:

• What kind of situations appear to be most conducive to the emergence of tyranny?

• How do leaders become mass-murders? Who are these people?

• Why do their people sometimes support and aid them in genocide or other types of mass violence?

WHAT FACTORS DON’T SEEM TO BE CORE CAUSES FOR A MASS MURDER TO COME TO

POWER?• Economic development & education: Life in Germany and

Russia had been getting better prior to the crisis that triggered their dark periods

• Ethnic division isn’t always present when genocide occurs: Rwanda (a case of backlash against a “middle man” group) vs. Germany

• Does the brutal leader thrive only under a certain culture and religion? No:Middle-East (Hussein), Europe (Hitler), Latin America (Trujillo), Asia (Mao), Africa (Idi Amin)

WHAT FACTORS DON’T SEEM TO BE CORE CAUSES FOR A MASS MURDER TO COME TO POWER?

• Does the type of development matter? Agrarian and industrial societies have experienced brutality

• Are all mass-murders totalitarians? Russia vs. Iraq under Hussein

• Is having balanced power a way to ensure that a mass-murderer won’t ever seize power? Does a large welfare state risk tyranny? (Fascism vs. democratic socialism vs. communism)

• While new states are more susceptible to the emergence of brutal leaders, old states sometimes have dark periods as well

• Mass murders don’t all come to power via coups and violence: Germany

WHAT STATES ARE MOST SUSCEPITBLE? WHEN AND HOW DO LEADERS BECOME

MASS-MURDERS?

• Daniel Chirot’s propositions are based on his comparative study of 13 tyrannical regimes in the 20th C: Pol Pot (Cambodia) , Mao (China), Stalin (Russia), Hitler (Germany), Kim (N. Korea), Cheausescu (Romania), Ne Win (Burma / Miramar), Argentina’s Junta, Trujillo (Dominican Republic), Duvalier (Haiti), Bokassa (Central African Republic), and Idi Amin (Uganda)

WHEN AND HOW DO LEADERS BECOME MASS-MURDERS?

• The relative deprivation thesis: The more chaotic (relative to expectations and experience) the economic system, the more likely a self-proclaimed savior will emerge and be supported both by elites and masses

• Weak states: Political and esp. bureaucratic chaos (esp. divided elites) prevents states from crushing rising tyrants and allows the tyrants to consolidate power.

WHEN AND HOW DO LEADERS BECOME MASS-MURDERS?

• Cultural susceptibility to “tyrannical nationalism”: “For any national, new or old, we can judge the extent to which its political and intellectual elite’s identify is based on jealous and vengeful resentment and memories of past wrongs, whether real or imagined”– Communal ideologies of conflict, virtue, and heredity

Germany, Russia, and JapanManifest destiny vs. “melting pots” and “cosmic races: The US and Latin American treatment of indigenous and African descendent peoples

– Some societies have an ideology that emphasizes the inevitability of conflict with other groups (US indigenous populations and manifest destiny; Islamic fascism, evil empires, and the like)

WHEN AND HOW DO LEADERS BECOME MASS-MURDERS?

• Societies that emphasize communal identity over human rights are particularly susceptible to mass violence– Were Japan’s atrocities in WW2 in part due to a culture

that emphasized both communalism and the problems noted above

– Democracies sometimes use mass violence during war time: Japanese internment and nuclear weapons use; Guantanamo

• Societies that are isolated (by choice or as a consequence of their actions) from the outside world are more likely to be detached from changing universal norms on human rights– Are we pursuing the best policies for human rights in our

dealings with Miramar and N. Korea? What can China tell us?

COMPARING TYRANTS: HUSSEIN• Why does Jerrold Post have a problem with calling

Saddam Hussein “the madman of the Middle East”?• The first context: What was Saddam’s early life like, and

why does this matter?– What was his relationship with his father, mother,

brother, step father like?– What does psychological research on political

leadership say about early development and self esteem?

– What causes some youngsters with troubled backgrounds to sink into depression, passivity and hopelessness but others to “etch a psychological template of compensatory grandiosity”?

COMPARING TYRANTS: HUSSEIN• The second context: What role did his uncle

and later father-in-law, Kharaillah Tulfah, play in Hussein’s upbringing?

• The larger context: How did revolutionary sentiment and pan-Arab Nationalism (especially that of Egypt’s Nasser) impact the young Hussein?

• How did Hussein come power in the Bathist party and in Iraq? How was he seen outside of Iraq in the Cold War?

COMPARING TYRANTS: HUSSEINWhat was the personality type of Hussein and how did this

impact his brutality? A malignant narcissist • He pursued messianic dreams with a highly exalted self

concept“Saddam is Iraq, Iraq is Saddam”

• Why did he have none of the normal constraints on his ethical behavior that “rational” people normally have? – Why do most of us follow in what sense did Hussein

have a conscience? – Is there any way to justify his behavior morally? What

do we make of claims like Castro’s “History will absolve me!”

• Was there any rational reason for him to believe that he was or could be one of history’s great leaders? Who were his role models: Mao, Stalin, and Nasser

COMPARING TYRANTS: HUSSEINHussein was also paranoid• Was there any “rational” reason for him to believe that

most people were a threat to him and thus he needed to take a preemptive retaliatory position with not only with Kurds, Shias and Iran, but also those around him?

• How did the end of the Cold War play into Saddam’s paranoia? Why did the US abandon one of its great allies in the region (Saddam became pres. In 1979)

Was Hussein’s showdown with US evidence of having a martyrdom complex, too? No

COMPARING TYRANTS: HUSSEIN VS. STALIN AND HITLER

Why might Stalin have been even worse than Hitler ? • Who were Stalin’s 30 -40 million victims? The Bolsheviks and

Trotskyites (1930s, 10 million or so in round after round of purges that included even his closest associates), “Kulak” peasants (1920S and 30s), 2 million ex-Soviet POWs (1940s), and he died as a purge against Jews was starting.

• Who were Hitler’s 7-10 million victims? Mostly Jews, but also 2-3 million non-Jewish Poles and Slavs, as well as Gypsies, homosexuals, handicapped, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the spouses of these groups.

• Why does Stalin get treated differently than Hitler in some circles? Communism like various types of nationalism has apologists who downplay atrocities because they are attracted to the larger cause… A side note about Cuba.

COMPARING TYRANTS: HUSSEIN VS. STALIN AND HITLER

Why was Stalin able to start murdering right away, while Hitler (and Hussein) had to bide their time?

• Stalin came to power via a civil war and a powerful ideology; he had complete control of civil society and of force.

• Hitler did most of his murdering in the last five years, targeting Jews who made up less than 1% of the German population when Hitler came to power.

• The totalitarian homogenization of culture took longer under Hiltler: He initially “prepared” the population with massive amounts of very effective propaganda and by causing them to cross ethical lines with anti-miscegenation and other discriminatory laws.