New Directions in Genocide Research by Adam Jones

Author:Adam Jones [Jones, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, International Relations, Diplomacy, Security (National & International), Social Science, Demography
ISBN: 9780415495974
Google: VB5ZPgAACAAJ
Goodreads: 11266751
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2011-09-02T00:00:00+00:00

These formulations are consistent with other scholars’ explorations of structural and institutional violence; for instance, Steven Lee’s exploration of the question, “Is Poverty Violence?” Lee writes:

Poverty results in a whole range of serious physical and psychological harms: higher risks of disease, shortened life spans, stunted mental and emotional development, and inadequate opportunity to lead a meaningful life. These are primarily institutionally imposed harms, because they are the result of the enforcement of systems of social, political, legal, and economical [sic] rules. But, though the harms are institutional, they are caused by individuals, in the sense that the acts of other individuals could avoid them. It is individuals who enforce the unjust legal norms of the social order and refrain from seeking to change these norms to achieve a fairer redistribution of wealth and power.6

An important feature of the violence that human agency produces when supported by ideological structures and institutions is that violent outcomes arrive by a more indirect route than the direct, highly personal actions we standardly label as “violent.” This is true in both a temporal and an empirical sense. Structural and institutional forms of violence tend to be inflicted more slowly, often through gradual impoverishment and debilitation. They also tend to result from human actions and decisions, the proximate purpose of which is other than to cause death or debilitation; these consequences may be incidental or even accidental, rather than integral to the purposive project. To cite an example, industrial pollution may be seen as a form of structural and institutional violence, in that it is: (1) an outgrowth of a human institution (industrialism), embedded in pervasive, enduring economic and social structures; and (2) objectively harmful to human life and health. However, pollution is not released in order to damage human beings and the ecosystem that sustains them. It is released as part of the pursuit of profit, or of personal utility, or even accidentally (as with a toxic chemical spill). Likewise, the looting of state assets and resources through corruption does not have the purpose of creating social conditions that result in mass immiseration and rising mortality: its perpetrators simply aim at self-enrichment. None of this, however, means that the death and debility linked to institutionalized corruption are unintentional – motive and intent are conceptually distinct, as I explore next.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.