Genocide Restraint: Economic Integration of Ethnic Minorities in Africa

Abstract

The genocide literature focuses on the conditions and casual mechanisms that make a situation ``ripe'' for genocide. However, the literature posits factors and mechanisms that are more common than the outcome of genocide. The reason is two-fold. First, genocide does not emerge in isolation from other conflictual events, but out of them. Second, escalation factors are only half of the process. The other half are restraint mechanisms. I propose an economic restraint theory of genocide that incorporates these multidimensional processes. Specifically, this economic restraint approach develops a theory of genocide costs, particularly the toll genocide takes on the state's economy. This study theorizes that the economic location of the state's revenue stream and the ethnic minority act as restraints on genocide and state violence more generally. This study finds that genocide is less likely to occur when minorities are integrated into the state's preponderant economic sector, specifically the resource rents and services sector. Additionally, genocide is more likely when the minorities are not integrated into the state's preponderant economic sector.