著者

月村 太郎

出版者

JAPANESE POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION

雑誌

年報政治学 (ISSN:05494192)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.60, no.2, pp.2_31-2_49, 2009 (Released:2013-02-07)

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Ethnic Cleansing (EC) became a widely used expression during the Civil War in Bosnia in 1992-1995. But EC has a long history, and we can find examples of EC wherever violent conflicts happen on a large scale.   We may have various kinds of images regarding EC. For example, when we received information about EC in the case of Rwanda, we may have imagined a situation where “soldiers” carried out various atrocities, and ordinary people fanatically killed others. In the case of the Holocaust carried out by the Nazis, we may have quite a different image, for example that EC was dispassionately carried out under the direction of political or military leaders.   Why do we have such diverse images of EC? Firstly, EC is typically carried out by three different kinds of participants: (i)ethnonationalistic politicians, senior civil officials and military officers; (ii)individuals with lower status in the military, police, and paramilitary forces; (iii)ordinary people. Secondly, participants take part in EC for their own motive(s). Lastly, collective mentality has an influence upon the acts of participants.