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P.O. Box 2022 ·∙ Grand Central Station ·∙ New York, NY 10163 ·∙ USA Phone: +1 212 599-‐2542 Fax: +1 212 599-‐1332 Email: [email protected] It Can Happen Here: Assessing the Risk of Genocide in the US (02/24/17) James E. Waller, Cohen Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies Keene State College (NH-US) The Center for the Development of International Law (CDIL) was established to promote the development of international law and strengthening of the international legal order. A non-governmental organization with consultative status with the United Nations, CDIL advocates increasing the application of international law to individuals. CDIL also works to further the awareness of the interdependence between international and local laws and initiatives. The Institute for Global Policy (IGP) is a research and policy institute dedicated to the promotion of human security, international justice, the prevention of armed conflict, and the protection of civilians. Through an emphasis on the democratization of international and regional organizations and the development and global application of international law, the Institute works to find pragmatic and actionbased solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges. Executive Summary signs and assess the degree of risk for Could a long, slow attrition of genocide in the US. civil and human rights bring our country It would be the epitome of again to the point where genocide – at American exceptionalism to believe that home or abroad – stands justified as we, alone among nations in the world, sound political, social, national, and are immune to genocide. Every country economic strategy? If so, could we in the world, including the US, is at risk recognize the warning signs in that of genocide. Countries simply differ in process and have the collective resolve their degree of risk. The US, over its to resist and mitigate them? history, certainly has developed some The purpose of this paper is to offer a sober important foundations, structures, real-time analysis of those warning policies, and a unique brand of checks and balances (both within government a Latin American, African, or Eastern as well as civil society) that mitigate European country, the risk of warning much of the risk of genocide. Through would be clear and alarms would be the norm of the responsibility to protect, raised by a range of governmental and we have affirmed a global commitment non-governmental actors. We cannot let to protect our population from genocide the false comfort of believing it cannot and other mass atrocity crimes. happen here stop us from raising those We would be naïve, though, to believe that same alarms for our country. we have, or could ever have, mitigated Genocide is an extremely rare all the risk of genocide. It would be a event. But, while it does not happen disingenuous and dangerous denial of often, it does happen. our history to believe that our past, happens, it is the culmination of a long present, or future somehow shelters us process that did not appear without from the risk of genocide. warning. Rather, there were signs and And, when it symptoms along a predictable, but not Using a comprehensive and data- inexorable, path. Those signs and driven set of risk factors that help us symptoms – the risk factors discussed in understand the preconditions for a this paper – are what we must attend to genocidal society, this paper focuses on if we have any hopes of preventing the proximate and immediate pressure genocide at home or abroad. of risk factors related to governance and light, social fragmentation as impacted by, suggestions for preventive measures and reflected in, the emergence of a new that can be proactively applied – by presidential administration in the US. policymakers, academics, lawyers, civil This paper argues that recent political society (including the media, social transitions in governance, combined movements, with an escalation in long-term social communities), and individual citizens – fragmentation trends, have increased to our risk for genocide in the US. Were governance and social fragmentation we noticing these same signs of poor factors. governance and social fragmentation in the mitigate paper concludes NGOs, the In that and risks with diaspora posted by Introduction Can Lewis’ novel become reality? In 1935, American author Sinclair Can it happen here? And could it Lewis wrote a semi-satirical political happen to the degree that a long, slow novel, It Can’t Happen Here, which attrition of civil and human rights brings follows a our country again to the point where presidential genocide – at home or abroad – stands the charismatic improbable populist rise of candidate, Berzelius (“Buzz”) Windrip. justified as sound political, social, As essayist Beverly Gage describes: national, and economic strategy? If so, “Windrip sells himself as the champion could we recognize the warning signs in of ‘Forgotten Men,’ determined to bring that process and have the collective dignity and prosperity back to America’s resolve to resist and mitigate them? The white working class. Windrip loves big, purpose of this paper is to offer a sober passionate rallies and rails against the real-time analysis of those warning ‘lies’ of the mainstream press. His signs and assess the degree of risk for supporters genocide in the US. embrace this message, against the ‘highbrow warning signs, or risk factors, are social intellectuality’ of editors and professors inequities that have been decades in the and Windrip’s making and show signs of exacerbation encouragement, they also take out their in the current social and political frustrations on blacks and Jews.”i After climate. Others are governance issues his election as president, Windrip takes more closely tied to the ascendancy of complete control of the government and Donald Trump to the White House. imposes totalitarian rule. Selling more Together, the long-term social trends than 300,000 copies in its 1935 release, and Lewis’ book has returned to the 2017 transitions can give us a clear picture of bestseller lists “as an analogy for the Age the potential for genocide in the US, of Trump” and a warning about the either at home or abroad. lashing out policy elites. With slippery erosion of democracy into fascism, dictatorship, authoritarianism.ii and the more Some of these immediate political The paper begins with a review of definitions and historical background, proceeds to a data-driven analysis of risk factors and where the US finds itself at the beginning of 2017, and concludes While the word “genocide” was with a discussion of how we might best not coined until its 1944 appearance in respond to these risks. Raphael Lemkin’s Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, its practice, as Jean-Paul Sartre Definitions and Historical has written, “is as old as humanity.”iii It Background is clear that genocide cannot be confined The United Nations Convention to one culture, place, or time in modern on the Prevention and Punishment of history. the Crime of Genocide (commonly definitions estimates that at least 60 known as the Genocide Convention) was million men, women, and children were adopted at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris victims of genocide and mass killing in on December 9, 1948. The Genocide the past century alone.iv On the upper Convention includes 19 concise articles. end, political scientist Rudolph Rummel It is Article II, however, that is the argues that close to 170 million civilians central were done to death in the twentieth defining article of the Even the most restrictive of Convention: “In the present Convention, century.v genocide means any of the following acts decades of the twenty-first century have committed with intent to destroy, in brought little light to the darkness. In whole or in part, a national, ethnical, recent racial or religious group, as such: (a) themselves under attack in Chechnya, killing members of the group, (b) the Democratic Republic of Congo, causing serious bodily or mental harm Kenya, to (c) Kyrgyzstan, Bahrain, Somalia, Yemen, deliberately inflicting on the group Afghanistan, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, China, conditions of life calculated to bring the Philippines, Colombia, Macedonia, about its physical destruction in whole Pakistan, Libya, North Korea, Ukraine, or in part, (d) imposing measures Tajikistan, and an increasingly wide intended to prevent births within the swath territory controlled by the Islamic group, State of Iraq and the Levant (also known members or (e) of the forcibly group, transferring children of the group to another group.” Unfortunately, years, civilians Ethiopia, the have Cote first found d’Ivoire, as ISIS). Of particular and immediate concern are escalating mass atrocity situations Burma, in South Syria, the Sudan, Sudan, that the lands were “unoccupied” if Central African Christians were not present. After the Republic, and Burundi. founding of America, federal and state It would be the epitome of policies of civilization, Americanization, American exceptionalism to believe that and cultural assimilation were conjoined we, alone among nations in the world, with policies of forced removal and are immune to genocide. Every country physical in the world, including the US, is at risk peoples who refused to give up their of genocide. Countries simply differ in land or their way of life. their degree of risk. Thomas As an analogy, destruction Jefferson of indigenous In 1807, warned of the every person in the world is at risk of impending devastation: " ...if ever we are heart disease, we just each differ, at constrained to lift the hatchet against various times in our life, in the degree of any tribe we will never lay it down til risk. Similarly, the lives of countries that tribe is exterminated, or driven vary in their degree of risk for genocide beyond the Mississippi...in war they will over time. This paper offers a snapshot kill some of us; but we will destroy all of of where we are in the life of the US, in them.”vii Indeed, the extermination of early for physical life – article (a) in the Genocide committing genocide, either as domestic Convention – was so pervasive that, by or foreign policy, in response to a 1891, perceived threat. suppressed and destroyed to the point 2017, The in terms possibility of of risk the US descending such a path is certainly not that Native they Americans no longer had been mattered in American policy and practice.viii without precedent, despite the deceit, Native American and conceit, often fostered by our languages, national narratives. In truth, we are a obliterated. Scholars and activists have country, as Martin Luther King Jr. applied article (e) of the Genocide asserted over half a century ago, “born Convention in children of the group to another group”) genocide.”vi The Doctrine of US and traditions, cultures (“forcibly assimilationist also were transferring Discovery legitimized the colonization of to policies and lands outside Europe on the premise practices of forced transferal of Native Americans to residential boarding Face of Genocide.” Two pages later, schools. More than 100,000 Native there is a reproduction of Articles II and Americans were forcibly transferred to III of the Genocide Convention. such schools, designed to “kill the petitioners – including such notables as Indian, and save the man.” There were W.E.B. Du Bois, William Patterson, and still 60,000 Native children enrolled in Paul Robeson – argued “that the boarding schools as their era was oppressed Negro citizens of the United coming to a close in 1973.ix In these States, segregated, discriminated against schools, tribal identities were erased and and long the target of violence, suffer “yielded a trauma of shame, fear, and from genocide as the result of the anger that has passed from generation consistent, conscious, unified policies of to generation fueling the alcohol and every branch of government.”xii drug abuse and domestic violence that petition “scrupulously kept within the continues to plague Indian country.”x purview of the Convention on the The The To the genocide of an indigenous Prevention and Punishment of the population, US history also adds the Crime of Genocide” with voluminous importation and enslavement of an documentation of atrocities, beginning African population, the legacy of which in 1945, tied specifically to Articles II still African-American and III of the Convention itself.xiii In the community to such a degree that victims words of their closing summary: “Thus it find an appropriate framing in the term was easy for your petitioners to offer “genocide.” In 1951, the Civil Rights abundant proof of the crime. It is Congress published a 238-page petition everywhere in American life.” The titled We Charge Genocide: The Crime petition concludes by asking “that the of Government Against the Negro General Assembly of the United Nations People.xi The petition opens, following find and declare by resolution that the the title page, with an undated full-page Government of the United States is photograph of the lynching of “two guilty of the crime of Genocide against young Columbus, the Negro People of the United States Mississippi – Dooley Morton and Bret and that it further demand that the Moore. The photograph is titled “The government of the United States stop scars the Negro men” in and prevent the crime of genocide.”xiv of US activities in Vietnam. Echoing the Given the strength of US influence arguments in We Charge Genocide, (particularly in the person of Eleanor Sartre even suggested that American Roosevelt, first chairperson of the UN policymakers tolerated atrocities against Human the Rights Commission, who Vietnamese similar tolerated against dismissed the petition as “ridiculous”), practices the General Assembly of the UN never American blacks.xvii gave Bertrand Russell’s International War serious consideration to its adoption.xv were because In late 1967, Crimes Tribunal, of which Sartre was Today, however, the petition – executive president, unanimously and its use of the term “genocide” – still declared the US guilty of the crime of resonates. “We Charge Genocide” is the genocide in Vietnam. More recently, in name of a grassroots, intergenerational 2009, The International Initiative to effort Prosecute US Genocide in Iraq filed to center the voices and experiences of the young people most legal targeted by police violence in Chicago, presidents, Illinois. The organization, whose title ministers, for the intended destruction pays intentional homage to the petition, of Iraq from 1990 to the present.xviii aims to confront the targeted repression, While harassment, brutality unsuccessful, they are illustrative of the disproportionately faced by low-income ways in which some parts of the world people and young people of color. view the destructive neo-colonialism of and The racial charges of genocide challenges those against and four legal four UK challenges US prime were some aspects of US foreign policy. against the US also have appeared in So, the historical answer to “Can foreign policy discussions. In 1967, for it happen here?” is a resounding “It has instance, happened here and, therefore, yes, it can Jean-Paul Sartre, in his famous essay, “On Genocide,” argued happen here again.” It would be a that US actions in Vietnam were directly disingenuous and dangerous denial of culpable in terms of Article II of the our history to believe that our past, Genocide Convention.xvi For Sartre, present, or future somehow shelters us genocidal intent was implicit in the facts from the risk of committing genocide – society. at home or abroad – to advance our genocidal This empirical political, social, national, or economic research is buttressed by my fieldwork interests. in conflict and post-conflict settings, including Germany, Israel, Northern Risk Assessment Ireland, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, In 2016, I published a book, Confronting Responsibility Evil: to Engaging Prevent Our Uganda, Tanzania, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Guatemala. Genocide For ease of illustration, I have (Oxford University Press), in which I grouped these risk factors into four reviewed the most commonly cited risk broad categories – governance, conflict factors from the most widely utilized history, economic conditions, and social early warning systems, with a focus on fragmentation (see Table 1). We should those factors especially relevant for note, however, that many of these risk assessing countries’ risks for onsets of factors mass violence, some cases of which intersecting issues, not easily confined could evolve into genocide.xix Lists of to one discrete category. risk factors are constantly evolving in effects empirical rigor and complexity. The corruption, for instance, have deep and United Nation’s Framework of Analysis interrelated governance, economic, and for Atrocity Crimes, for instance, takes a social impacts. Moreover, no single risk multi-layered approach of outlining risk factor should be taken as causal or, even, factors common to all atrocity crimes as predominant well as risk factors specific to each of the importance; rather, they should be atrocity crimes of genocide, war crimes, contextually and crimes against humanity. My conjunction with the presence of other review, mined from a wide range of risk factors – as somehow associated multidisciplinary research, combines the with strengths of various systems to give us a genocide. comprehensive and data-driven list of twenty risk factors that help us understand the preconditions for a are of cross-cutting state in and their the The erosive public understood increasing and sector contributing – probability in of Table 1 Categories of Risk Factors for Violent or Genocidal Conflict Governance Regime Type State Legitimacy Deficit Weakness of State Structures Identity-Based Polar Factionalism Systematic State-Led Discrimination Conflict History History of Identity-Related Tension Prior Genocides or Politicides Past Cultural Trauma Legacy of Vengeance or Group Grievance Record of Serious Violations of International Human Rights and Laws Economic Conditions Low Level of Economic Development Economic Discrimination Lack of Macroeconomic Stability Economic Deterioration Growth of Informal Economies and Black Markets Social Fragmentation Identity-Based Social Divisions Demographic Pressures Unequal Access to Basic Goods and Services Gender Inequalities Political Instability There are certainly important risk issues to In terms of regime type, a diverse set be considered related to the ways in which of research suggests that states with a lower US conflict history is remembered, taught, degree of democratization are at greater processed and understood (particularly our risk for the onset of violent conflict or national amnesia related to genocides we genocide. Why? Generally, it stems from have committed and enabled around the the fact that states with a lower degree of globe) and economic conditions democratization have fewer institutional group-based economic constraints on executive power and state discrimination), but these risk factors are security, effectively leaving power holders born from longer-term and slower moving unaccountable for their decision-making, structures, society-wide policies and behaviors. As genocide scholar conditions, and processes that put states at Barbara Harff argues: “Democratic and risk for genocide. Of focus in this paper are quasi-democratic regimes have institutional the checks on executive power that constrain (particularly measures, more pressure proximate risk elites from carrying out deadly attacks on governance and social fragmentation as citizens…the democratic norms of most impacted the contemporary societies favor the protection presidential of minority rights and the inclusion of by, and of a factors immediate to emergence of and related reflected new in, administration in the US. Governance. political opponents.”xxi In regimes with a Governance refers, lower degree of democratization, the broadly, to the ways in which authority in a institutional constraints on power holders country is exercised. How are governments are compromised by the lack of an selected, monitored, and replaced? What is independent and impartial judiciary, media, the capacity of the government to develop or police. National civil society, as well as and implement sound policies? To what international civil society, is muzzled and degree do the citizens respect the state and there is limited cooperation of the regime the institutions that govern them?xx Nearly with international and regional human all early warning systems include various rights mechanisms.xxii traits of governance as risk factors for freedom of speech, expression, association, genocide. or assembly for the country’s citizens lead Restrictions on to a loss of political space and voice for journalists opposition. hostility.”xxv by name with unrelenting After Trump’s January 11, Amid a global democratic recession, 2017 attacks on CNN’s Jim Acosta, saying a pattern of incidents related to the his organization was “terrible” and “fake intelligence and news,” Trump drew praise from Turkish judiciary raise concern about the degree of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for putting democratization in the US. the reporter “in his place.” community, media, Even before Since an assuming office, president-elect Trump attempted coup against him last July, called into question the professionalism of Erdogan has jailed at least 144 journalists the over and closed more than 160 media outlets.xxvi unsubstantiated claims that he was caught While in office, the Trump administration in a compromising position in Russia. "I has continued to attack the independent think it was disgraceful, disgraceful that the media as “dishonest” and peddlers of “fake intelligence news.” US intelligence community agencies allowed any In his first press conference as information that turned out to be so false president, it was widely reported that and fake out. I think it's a disgrace, and I Trump “filled the room with paid staffers say that ... that's something that Nazi who clapped and cheered as he blasted Germany would have done and did do," members Trump told a news conference in New disconcertingly, in an interview with the York.xxiii Christian Broadcasting Network, Trump of the media.”xxvii Most On inauguration day, at least six referred to the media as “the opposition journalists were charged with felony rioting party.” This statement directly reinforced after they were arrested while covering the chief violent anti-Trump protests in Washington Bannon’s repeated characterizations of the (as of this writing, charges against four have media as “the opposition party” who should been dropped).xxiv “keep its mouth shut.”xxviii The Committee to White House strategist Stephen Protect Journalists expressed concern about The judiciary has not escaped similar “the sharp deterioration of press freedom in wrath from the Trump administration. In the US,” noting that, during his campaign, early February 2017, Judge James Robart, a Trump George had “obstructed major news organization, vilified the press and attacked W. Bush-appointed judge, temporarily blocked President Trump’s executive order to ban citizens of seven independence and impartiality. Columnist predominately Muslim countries – Iraq, Dean Obeidallah sees the danger posed by Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and such compromise: “An independent federal Yemen – from entering the US for 90 days, judiciary is our last, best hope at preventing all refugees for 120 days, and indefinitely Trump from violating the US Constitution stopping the flow of refugees from Syria. and illegally grabbing power. And Trump The following day, in yet another early has to understand that, hence his attempt to morning tweet, President Trump attacked undermine it. The President truly appears the “so-called judge” whose decision, in to be leading a master class in transforming Trump’s mind, “takes law-enforcement the United States into a dictatorship.”xxix away from our country, is ridiculous and Such compromises to the degree of will be overturned!” The following week, a democratization in the US lead to a second federal appeals court declined to block risk factor – state legitimacy deficit. This Robart’s ruling that suspended the ban. risk factor reflects to the degree to which While Trump’s immediate Twitter reaction the state is perceived by its citizens to be a was strong – “SEE YOU IN COURT, THE legitimate actor representative of the people SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT as a whole. STAKE!” – as of this writing, it appears that constitution, the national authorities, and Trump has decided not to challenge the representatives of the government? ruling in the Supreme Court but, rather, will transparent and accountable are state reintroduce a reworked executive order. In institutions and processes? the the strong oversight mechanisms for the state? foundation of the judiciary with tweets Is the state perceived as criminal? Does the declaring “our legal system is broken” and state have the confidence of its people? “dangerous.” These are questions of state legitimacy and meantime, At issue he still is chips the at threat to democratization, and the closing of civic space, posed by such statements. Is there respect for the How Are there any perceived deficit in that legitimacy can leave a governance system at risk. These Christopher Browning, a leading attacks, coming from the highest office in Holocaust scholar, argues that the risk we the land, delegitimize the judiciary and, by did not see coming in Trump’s rise to power politicizing it, compromise its degree of was the tyranny of the minority. As he writes: on evidence of this specific event happening majority rule tempered by minority rights. I nor is there any known evidence for the had always assumed that the major threat more general Trump accusation that 3-5 to our democracy, if one arrived, would million illegal immigrants voted in the come through a ‘tyranny of the majority’ presidential election. that “Our cast democracy Reflecting many of these concerns constitutional protections of the minority. about a state legitimacy deficit, the 2016 What we have seen between 2010 and 2016, edition of the annual Democracy Index however, is not the emergence of a tyranny from of downgraded the US from a “full democracy” majority, irreversible or based the the aside is subverted but capture an of increasingly our elected the Economist Intelligence Unit to a “flawed democracy,” citing the further institutions by a focused and uninhibited erosion minority.”xxx institutions as a reason for the change. Indeed, as reflected in Hillary of trust in American public “Trust in political institutions is an essential Clinton’s substantial victory in the popular component vote (nearly 3 million votes), rule through democracies,” it stated, “yet surveys by Pew, electoral majority is not the reality of the Gallup and other polling agencies have current US political climate. confirmed And that of that public well-functioning confidence in causes many in our country to question government has slumped to historic lows in whether the Trump administration is a the U.S.”xxxii While the report indicated that legitimate actor representative of the people these were long-term trends and not as a whole. In response, Trump, and his attributable to Donald Trump, it was administration, have insisted on citing equally clear in describing how he has “massive voter fraud” as the reason for his benefitted from them. Upon entering office, loss in the popular vote. As recently as Americans were less confident in Trump’s February 12, 2017, Stephen Miller, a White abilities to perform presidential duties than House senior policy advisor, continued to they were in his predecessors and his first assert that thousands of Massachusetts month in office has only deepened the lack residents were bussed into New Hampshire, of public confidence, respect, and trust in my home state, to vote illegally in the the US government.xxxiii presidential election.xxxi There is no known within The checks related to genocide risk the as well as hundreds of thousands more in institutions funded by the government, are cities across the US. Just over a week later, also being compromised to a degree that spontaneous threatens state legitimacy. The Atrocities Trump’s Muslim ban erupted at airports Prevention Board (APB), a mechanism that around the country. On February 10, the involves senior officials from 10 agencies newly-minted education secretary, Betsy and offices across government, was created DeVos, was even temporarily blocked from to support more attentive monitoring and entering a DC middle school by a small response to potential atrocity risks. While group of protestors. focused almost exclusively on foreign risks, Trump its presence at least kept the notion of risk protests as confirmation of his apocalyptic and State vision of the current state of the country APB’s which he feels tasked to save, researchers dissolution under the Trump White House Monty Marshall and Benjamin Cole remind is a near-certainty. The US Institute of us: “Mass protest should not be viewed as Peace and the US Holocaust Memorial an exercise in democracy, but, rather, as a Museum, both heavily dependent on federal signal that the political process, whether funding, find their voices of critique or democratic or autocratic, is failing to resistance to the US government largely adequately conceded to the necessity of continued discontent funding. So, their alerts likely will continue address an important and valued issue in to focus on risks abroad rather than at public policy.”xxxiv Department’s atrocities or hundreds of thousands of protestors to DC within mass government, on agenda. the The home. massive may protests While President perversely recognize and against welcome the dissent such levels and of properly Weakness of state structures ask to For states that have a legitimacy what degree the state can provide basic deficit, we often see the manifestation in public services and answer people’s needs? rallies, How peaceful demonstrations, mass effective protests against state authority or policies, hospitals, uprisings, or even riots. courts March of January counterinauguration of The Women’s 21, sorts, 2017, a brought are schools, systems, state police structures – departments, sanitation, public transportation, etc.? Does the state enforce contracts and property rights? To what degree does the state follow the rule of law? detentions, voter intimidation, torture, and Can the state protect its citizens or do crime forced relocation or exile – all of which and violence threaten to overrun the state? involve denial of due process consistent All these indicate the relative strength or with international norms and practices. weakness of state structures and, as state Most notable in regard to a structures weaken, the risk of violent or compromise in the rule of law has been genocidal conflict increases. President Trump’s ill-fated executive order The degree to which the state follows temporarily banning refugees from seven the rule of law is a clear indicator of the predominately Muslim countries. relative strength or weakness of its state packaged to offer a veneer of religious structures. While often used, the “rule of neutrality by not mentioning any religious law” is a difficult term to define. For the group by name, the order did, in fact, target UN, the rule of law is understood as “…a Muslims. In so doing, a de facto Muslim principle ban of governance in which all qualifies as While unconstitutional persons, institutions and entities, public discrimination. and private, including the State itself, are Judge Robart held, was based on absolutely accountable to laws that are publicly no evidence that supported the security promulgated, and concerns cited by Trump as the reason for independently adjudicated, and which are the exclusion of refugees from these specific consistent with international human rights countries. In blocking the entirety of the norms and standards. It requires, as well, ban, Robart implied that there is no measures to ensure adherence to the constitutional way to carry out Trump’s principles of supremacy of law, equality unconstitutional before the law, accountability to the law, Moreover, fairness in the application of the law, counter to international law and treaties the separation of powers, participation in US has ratified (for instance, the UN decision-making, legal certainty, avoidance Refugee of arbitrariness and procedural and legal International transparency.”xxxv States in which the rule Political Rights), “some provisions of which of law is compromised often have rising have been incorporated into US law and numbers cited as binding by the US Supreme of equally political enforced arrests, illegal Moreover, the order, as Trump’s Convention executive Muslim as Covenant order. ban well on runs as the Civil and Court.”xxxvi authoritarian The Trump administration’s response to the In his days as a senator, Jeff Sessions rulings, criticized strategies that “gave terrorism articulated by senior policy advisor Stephen suspects the right to lawyers, the right to Miller, is chillingly dismissive of the rule of remain silent and the right to a speedy law: “Our opponents, the media and the trial.”xl It is unclear, exactly, how Sessions whole world will soon see as we begin to will approach prosecution of terrorism take further actions, that the powers of the suspects in his new role as attorney general. President to protect our country are very The specter raised, however, by Sessions’ substantial and will not be questioned.”xxxvii views on the treatment of terrorism Administrative approval of torture suspects continue to nurture concerns and denial of due process are other threats about denial of due process consistent with to the rule of law. international While military and norms and practices. academic experts have been clear on the Ultimately, as David Frum, a former very limited intelligence benefits to be speechwriter for President George W. Bush, gained from torture, President Trump is points out, “The United States may be a under the inexplicable impression that nation of laws, but the proper functioning of torture does work. "We're not playing on an the law depends upon the competence and even field," Trump said. "I want to do integrity of those charged with executing everything within the bounds of what you're it.”xli allowed to do legally. But do I feel it works? Elites and state institutions Absolutely, I feel it works."xxxviii To date, fragmented among identity lines – be they Trump’s attempts to broaden US laws to racial, ethnic, religious, class, clan, tribal, or allow torture, even suggesting a possible political – often lead to a high level of return of CIA “black site” prisons, have contentiousness and identity-based polar been rebutted – even by some of his Cabinet factionalism. picks. In the words of Republican Senator factionalism as “polities with parochial or John McCain: "The President can sign ethnic-based political factions that regularly whatever executive orders he likes. But the compete for political influence in order to law is the law. We are not bringing back promote particularist agendas and favor torture in the United States of America.”xxxix group Marshall and Cole define members common, to secular, the or detriment of cross-cutting agendas.”xlii Such factionalism can become ranks, leaves our elected officials very so unlikely to deviate from their party lines.xlv sharply oppositional and uncompromising that it becomes a winner- Columnist Sabrina Tavernise take-all approach to politics with “the laments the rise of identity-based polar transference negotiable factionalism in the US: “The pattern often material interests to emotively-charged and goes like this: one country. Two tribes. ultimately symbolic Conflicting visions for how government issues.”xliii As Marshall and Cole conclude: should be run. There is lots of shouting. “Polar factionalism tends to radicalize both Sometimes there is shooting. anti-state and state factions and lead the same forces are tearing at my own country. political process toward greater levels of Increasingly, Americans live in alternate confrontation of worlds, with different laws of gravity, intransigence, placing it at the gateway to languages and truths. Politics is raw, more political instability and regime change.”xliv about who you are than what you believe. of potentially non-negotiable and greater depths Identity-based polar factionalism is fueled by exclusionary and harmful Now those The ground is shifting in unsettling ways. Even democracy feels fragile. President ideologies, often nationalistic in intent and Trump has brought out these contrasts, like propagated by extremist rhetoric in politics, colors in a photograph developing in a education, hate radio and media. These darkroom.”xlvi ideologies – rooted in the “us” and “them” Clearly, legitimate and effective binaries of the in-group bias – are based on governance is compromised by the rise of the supremacy of a certain identity or on identity-based polar factionalism and the extremist versions of identity. While the US political exploitation of such differences. is rife with identity-based issues grounded The military and judicial systems become in race, gender, ethnicity, class, etc., it is, more polarized and less representative of the divisions based on political identities the population. that currently are most salient. We have a activity and participative decision-making historic rise in polar factionalism between becomes more restricted. There is limited Republicans and Democrats that, coupled freedom of political expression, especially with an increase in discipline within party those voices proposing compromise. Equal access to political Finally, systematic state-led communities, trust – the lifeline for discrimination against a minority group – effective delivery of policing and social including liberties, services – is not being eroded, rather it is restricting educational access, arbitrary being dismantled with malice and it may detention or imprisonment, torture as state take generations to restore. "The President policy, large-scale illegal round-ups of wants to show off and it appears he has civilians, the revocation of the right to unleashed the Department of Homeland citizenship, expropriation or destruction of Security to kick-out large numbers of property (including cultural religious and immigrants and anyone they encounter, sacred sites), etc. – is a governance risk without much oversight, review or due factor that weighs heavily as a concern for process," said Illinois Democratic Rep. Luis the protection of civilians. For some, such Gutierrez. "The goal of such policies is to systematic discrimination represents the inject fear into immigrant communities, foundational cornerstones of risk that can frighten families and children, and drive escalate into genocide.xlvii immigrants removal of civil Indeed, the farther underground. It empirical support for systematic state-led damages public safety and the fabric of discrimination as a potent risk factor is American communities while putting a robust. burden on local social services and the In early February 2017, Immigration foster-care system."xlix and Customs Enforcement (ICE) stepped At the UN General Assembly World up actions to arrest targeted undocumented Summit in September 2005 in New York – immigrants for deportation proceedings. the largest-ever gathering of world leaders While similar actions were taken under the – the US joined more than 150 heads of Obama state and government in unanimously administration, ICE’s recent roundups seem to have indiscriminately adopting targeted a much wider scope of individuals. “responsibility Sanctuary called referred to as R2P). In so doing, the US “hotbeds of criminal activity” by Trump affirmed that “each individual State has the (despite data saying the opposite), feel responsibility to protect its populations particularly these from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing targeted and crimes against humanity.” Moreover, dragnets.xlviii cities, stereotypically singled In out these by a concept to known protect” as the (commonly the document continued, “the international community, and massive corruption and community, through the United Nations, civil conflict at the state level.”lii also has the responsibility . . . to help to social cohesion can unite a people and protect populations” from those same mass strengthen a society, social fragmentation atrocities. state-led splinters a people, reduces the resiliency of discrimination against minority groups flies a society, and places it at increased risk for in the face of that state responsibility and violent or genocidal conflict. further Systematic l erodes US leadership in the Where Identity-based social divisions – international community to help protect particularly other populations from mass atrocities. So, differential access to power, wealth, status, while the Trump administration seeks to and resources – are a considerable source of prioritize refuge for Syrian Christians risk. Social identity matters deeply as a seeking protections from a state that source of intergroup conflict. cannot, or will not protect them, the identity can be manipulated by power administration – at the same time – is holders raising questions about its willingness to divisions and advance their own partisan protect segments of its own population interests. from the type of systematic state-led subordinate identities rather than being discrimination that is an undeniable part of closely connected to a larger, more unifying the process that may lead to genocide. superordinate identity. Social Fragmentation. to when create intertwined or deepen with Social societal Individuals prioritize divisive Social In the Trump administration, global fragmentation can be defined “as a process citizenship now has taken a back seat to a in modern society by which different groups prevailing nationalist sentiment. President form parallel structures within society, Trump’s inaugural address made clear his which consistent perception of the bleak cost of not putting interaction between them over the full America first: “For many decades, we've spectrum of the social experience.”li In the enriched foreign industry at the expense of World Bank’s view, “social fragmentation American industry; subsidized the armies of can other countries, while allowing for the very have permeate little or society, no erupting, for example, as domestic violence in the sad depletion of our military. We've household, rising crime and violence in the defended other nations' borders while refusing to defend our own. trillions and trillions And spent of and on to discrimination (a dominant group dollars denies rights of the powerless). The fourth overseas while America's infrastructure has stage in his process is dehumanization, or fallen into disrepair and decay. We've made the denying of one group’s humanity by the other countries rich, while the wealth, other group.liv In this stage, identity-based strength and confidence of our country has social divisions are fueled by polarizing dissipated over the horizon. One by one, speech the factories shuttered and left our shores, violence against a particular group. Such with not even a thought about the millions hate speech is especially potent when and millions of American workers that were tolerated or encouraged by the state. promoting hatred or inciting left behind. The wealth of our middle class Throughout his candidacy, and even has been ripped from their homes and into the early days of his presidency, Trump then redistributed all across the world… has trumpeted a virulent anti-Muslim From this day forward, a new vision will rhetoric. govern our land. From this day forward, it's surveillance of mosques, the creation of a going to be only America first, America registry first.”liii “America First” separates us from, Muslims in the US, and has warned that and radical Muslims are “trying to take over our prioritizes community. us over, the global Moreover, such nationalism He or children.” has database called for system to more track A 2017 report by Amnesty can become a global threat if it undermines International, our commitment to international norms between developments in 2016 and Adolph such as R2P and deprioritizes foreign aid to Hitler’s rise to power in the 1930s, singled needy out countries in terms of health, agriculture, banking, security, etc. Trump misogynist drawing for and his global parallels “discriminatory, xenophobic rhetoric.”lv As genocide scholar Gregory Stanton Stanton’s research has demonstrated that has described, the rise of identity-based rhetoric matters in the escalatory process of social divisions can be conceptualized in the creating identity-based social divisions. As stages of an escalatory process that begins Corey Saylor of the Council of American- with classification (“us and them”) and Islamic continues through symbolization (giving divisive rhetoric contributes to a toxic names and symbols to the classification) environment in which some people take the Relations (CAIR) said: “Such law into their own hands and attack people of the original stereotypical perceptions of institutions they perceive as Muslim.”lvi held by the majority group members.lviii Indeed, a 2017 report by CAIR found “the Moreover, identity-based social number of recorded incidents in which divisions tend to grow more encompassing mosques were targeted jumped to 78 in as threats to power increase. 2015, the most since the body began bystanders can become tomorrow’s victims. tracking them in 2009. There were 20 and As Kenneth Roth, executive director of 22 such incidents in the previous two years, Human Rights Watch, has argued: “We respectively. The incidents include verbal should never underestimate the tendency of threats and physical attacks.”lvii demagogues who sacrifice the rights of Manipulating identity to sow, or exacerbate, social divisions reduces incentives for trust, cooperation, dialogue, and long-term social exposure. Today’s others in our name today to jettison our rights tomorrow when their real priority – retaining power – is in jeopardy.”lix In an While the US is relatively insulated Republican from the demographic pressures that primaries, for instance, psychologists Nour destabilize many fragile societies, we are Kteily and Emilie Bruneau, found that the not immune to the risk arising from dehumanization of Mexican immigrants unequal access to basic goods and services. and Muslims was a unique and strong Particularly relevant to social fragmentation predictor of support for aggressive policies are horizontal social inequalities – issues of against those groups. In response, the group-based unequal access to basic goods researchers found that these dehumanized and services, including “health, education, groups – Latinos and Muslims – were more water, likely to support violent as opposed to non- infrastructure.”lx violent collective action and also less willing such basic goods and services is a common to assist counterterrorism efforts. So, the social dehumanization of these minority groups societies, however, this is an expectation by and often unmet as the ability to access these supporters actually helped – in a perverse basic goods and services varies “within and self-fulfilling prophecy – to reinforce some across analysis of some the 2016 Republican US nominees sanitation, communications Having equal access to expectation. different and For social fragmented groups and geographic locations; rural communities and women and girls…are particularly American capitalism indifferent to its vulnerable to being underserved.”lxi injustices, the system is, indeed, rigged. The In the US, striking group-based wealthy have access to power; our disparities continue to be seen in income, representatives are beholden to the special education, health, and access to power. interests they are supposed to protect us Economically, in 2014, the median adjusted from. It is a plain fact that our political income for black households was $43,300, system is compromised.”lxvi compared to $71,300 for whites.lxii these are long-term problems inherited, In education, a persistent achievement gap rather between whites and minority students administration. extends well. however, the Trump administration, as of Nationally, high-poverty districts spend this writing, has no clear domestic policies 15.6 percent less per student than low- in mind with which to reduce the risk these poverty districts do.lxiii Harvard Graduate problems impose on the US. along class lines as than created, To be sure, To by the be equally Trump sure, School of Education Dean James E. Ryan There is an increasingly widespread says: "Our education system, traditionally recognition among researchers of the role thought of as the chief mechanism to gender inequalities play as a risk factor in address the opportunity gap, instead too violent conflict. often existing studies, political scientist Mary Caprioli societal inequities.”lxiv Health inequality – found that domestic gender inequality was including disparities in care and coverage – correlated with a state’s greater use of is also a deep part of American life, and violent threatening to become an even deeper international disputes.lxvii divide with the repeal of the Affordable specifically Care Act, particularly if there is no adequate international replacement. One study, for instance, deputy director of the Uppsala Conflict Data found that substandard care leads to 260 program in Sweden, also found that gender premature African-American deaths daily.lxv inequality was significantly predictive of Finally, unequal access also extends to the higher levels of intrastate armed conflict halls of power. (that is, civil war).lxviii A 2009 OECD policy writes: reflects “…not and entrenches As Jonathan Kirshner only is contemporary military at In one of the seminal solutions resolve Looking more intrastate conflict, to rather Erik than Melander, paper included unequal gender relations among its list of key structural risk factors full time in the United States typically were for armed violence.lxix Two years later, the paid just 80 percent of what men were Institute for Economics and Peace found a paid.”lxxiii strong correlation between three separate narrowed since the 1970s, there has not measures of gender equality (in public, at been a significant annual change since work, and in private) and a general measure 2007. At that glacial pace of change, the of state peacefulness (the Global Peace gender pay gap in the US – which is even Index, or GPI). For each of the measures, worse for women of color – would not be as gender equality decreased, a country’s erased until 2152. In more global issues, a ranking on the GPI decreased (particularly 2016 study from Save the Children found on the index’s internal peace measure).lxx the US ranks lower than Kazakhstan and Focusing specifically on gender inequalities Algeria (and just above Tunisia and Cuba) in family law and practice (including on marriage, divorce, custody, inheritance, and representation of women in parliament, other intimate family issues), international high teenage pregnancy rates and an security expert Valerie Hudson and her unconscionable colleagues discovered that levels of state mortality (14 women died per 100,000 live peacefulness decreased as the level of births in the US in 2015, a similar number inequities in family law and practice to Uruguay and Lebanon).lxxiv increased.lxxi one of only three countries in the world that In late 2015, the UN sent While the gender pay gap has gender equality, due record to its low on maternal The US is a does not guarantee women paid maternity delegation of human rights experts from leave and affordable child care remains so Poland, the United Kingdom, and Costa elusive as to prohibit many mothers from Rica to the US to prepare a report on our returning to the workplace in good time. country’s overall treatment of women. The Women’s reproductive rights continue to be delegates were appalled by the gender under inequalities they found in the US.lxxii These introducing almost 400 bills in 2015 alone inequalities remain no less apparent, and to restrict women’s access to abortion (47 of no less appalling, today. which became state law) and the Trump For instance, a attack with now state poised lawmakers 2017 report by the American Association of administration to launch University Women found “women working renewed efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade.lxxv Finally, all these areas of gender inequality that can intensify social fragmentation. The set, and reflect, a climate in which violence fluid risk factors associated with political against instability women is staggeringly high. – what political scientist Women are 11 times more likely to be killed Matthew Krain has term “openings in the by a gun in the United States than in other political opportunity structure” – are a high income countries, and nearly two- bridge from where to when violent conflict thirds of those murders are perpetrated by or genocide might be most likely.lxxix an intimate partner.lxxvi As columnist Political instability is heightened in Nicholas Kristof reminds us: “Husbands are the face of threats of internal, regional, or incomparably more deadly in America than international armed conflict. While threats jihadist of terrorists.”lxxvii College and armed conflict exacerbate political university campuses offer little sanctuary instability, their actualization leads to from gender-based violence as nearly one in “periods characterized by a high incidence four of violence, insecurity and the permissibility female undergraduates report experiencing sexual assault.lxxviii Finally, exacerbated social lxxx As former Secretary of “There’s no longer an over there and an with many of the risk factors already over here…there’s just an everywhere.”lxxxi discussed Indeed, general of acceptable.” Political instability intersects the face is State John Kerry said in early 2017: in the fragmentation political instability. in of acts that would not otherwise be category of if the Trump administration governance. The governance category was eventually goads Iran, North Korea, or concerned with the ways in which a state’s China into a war, it will only be a state structure and authority is exercised and versus state conflict for a short time. It will how that might relate to risk of violent quickly transform into a regionalized, or conflict or genocide. The risk factors in that even globalized, conflict. The saber-rattling category were fairly static elements that rhetoric of Trump and Russian President alert us to where violent conflict or Vladimir Putin even pushed the Bulletin of genocide might be more likely. Our Atomic Scientists to move the symbolic discussion of political instability, however, Doomsday Clock to two-and-a-half minutes looks more closely at internal or external before midnight – the closest to midnight it threats to a state’s authority or legitimacy has been at any time since the height of the Cold War. In the words of Thomas causal, multidimensional, and mutually Pickering, an American diplomat who reinforcing interactions of deeply enmeshed served as George W. Bush’s ambassador to risk factors. It is pointless to reduce those the United Nations and Bill Clinton’s multifaceted interactions to a single risk ambassador to Russia, “Nuclear rhetoric is index score. now loose and destabilizing. We are more place in the absence of these risk factors, than ever impressed that words matter, there certainly are many cases where a words count.”lxxxii significant number of risk factors exist but where While genocide rarely takes genocide does not occur (for instance, in Cote d’Ivoire). The more risk Responding to Risk factors for genocidal conflict that are Genocide is an extremely rare event. present, however, the greater the chance But, while it does not happen often, it does that accelerating factors may escalate a happen. And, when it happens, it is the crisis situation, or that a triggering event culmination of a long process that did not could actually lead to the onset of mass appear without warning. violence – unless we take action to modify were signs and Rather, there symptoms along a those risk factors that can be modified. predictable, but not inexorable, path. Those As I mentioned at the outset, every signs and symptoms – the risk factors we country in the world is at risk for genocide have discussed in this paper – are what we – countries simply differ in their degree of must attend to if we have any hopes of risk. The US, over its history, certainly has preventing genocide at home or abroad. developed some important foundations, While we have advanced far in our structures, policies, and a unique brand of understanding of the factors that put a checks and society at risk for genocide, we are government as well as civil society) that reminded that no single risk factor exists in mitigate much of the risk of genocide. We a vacuum. Indeed, “all other things being have a separation of powers within the equal” is not an applicable phrase for federal government and a clear, if not understanding the intricacies of how risk contentious, division of responsibilities factors interrelate. Each individual case is a between unique and complex outcome of multi- governments. that balances (both government and within state Through the norm of the responsibility to protect, we have affirmed a free, and enduring democratic system. Our global our democracy is far more fragile than we wish population from genocide and other mass to admit and it is not a self-sustaining atrocity crimes. We would be naïve, political system that we can simply put on though, to believe that we have, or could cruise control. As President Obama said in ever have, mitigated all the risk of genocide. his This paper has argued that recent political “democracy does require a basic sense of transitions in governance, combined with solidarity” and each of us are called to be an “anxious, commitment escalation in to protect long-term social fragmentation trends, have increased our risk for genocide in the US. Were we noticing of these same signs poor January jealous preventive Eastern of our guardianship that is central to active Latin or guardians address, In that spirit of solidarity and citizenship, African, farewell democracy.”lxxxiii governance and social fragmentation in a American, 2017 we should recognize implications that can the be European country, the risk of warning proactively applied – by policymakers, would be clear and alarms would be raised academics, lawyers, civil society (including by a range of governmental and non- the media, social movements, NGOs, and governmental actors. diaspora We cannot let the communities), and individual false comfort of believing it cannot happen citizens – to mitigate the risks posted by here stop us from raising those same alarms governance for our country. factors. and social fragmentation In many ways, the work of genocide From a governance perspective, we scholars is to be alarmist. And if we do not can offer the following ways in which sound that alarm early, history tells us that governance systems can be structured to our options for responding to, and resisting, reinforce those mechanisms that protect the rise of a genocidal society are much and sustain our democracy: more limited the farther along the process goes. So, if we choose to ignore the vulnerabilities posed by the factors described in this paper, we risk what matters most to us – an inclusive, stable, • Our political institutions should elevate inclusion, representativeness, power-sharing, and cross-identity group coalition building over winner-take-all majority rule.lxxxiv From a international norms and prevention standpoint, diffusion of practices. The mobilization of power and institutional constraints an on executive power and state resilient civil society – a vital security interface – independent, including an active, of and accountability and between the people and the inclusive judiciary, media, police, government – is of utmost and importance, particularly when military impartial, engaged, – are important democratic safeguards against the plugged onset networks.lxxxvi of violent conflict and genocide. • • The into international political elite of Governance systems can be governance systems can be structured to increase the inclusive and representative legitimacy with which the of state is viewed by its people, plurality as well as by the international identities in its population – community. Building citizens’ racial, robust the class, clan, tribe, or political. state’s “right to rule” means While political mobilization addressing issues related to along identity lines is not process inherently acceptance of legitimacy (observance of agreed or the multiplicity of provoking, it in as well as output legitimacy ways that (perceptions about state susceptibility performance and the central to state functioning and compliant with religious, violence- managed • The rule of law should be overlapping ethnic, customary rules of procedure) provision of services).lxxxv and should be constructive reduce to identity- based polar factionalism and ensure equal political participative access activity to and decision- making at all levels of the political structure. The state should be defined with no social identity of “us” rather reference to a dominant than social subordinate social identities identity (including religious identity). • Finally, that respect be not commitment to R2P as a • their own people.”lxxxvii and in education, religion, cultural programs, and physical integration in housing, State and civilian authorities can redress horizontal social fragmentation perspective, there are several preventive promoting deep schools, and work.lxxxviii how governments should treat for by cross-cutting sports, reinforcement of the US implications but relations territory. Central to this is a social superficial through minority groups within its a mere appreciation of the “other” policies and practices protecting all From In a engagement about for by contact society. The state should be “standard antagonistic nationalism is accomplished throughout all segments of a nondiscriminatory leave divisive pluralistic society, this civic institutionalized intentional more clusters of “thems.” for fundamental human rights can the the deep inequalities by providing equal access to basic goods and services across all social identity groups. intrinsic and instrumental value of social normative cohesion: equal The assumption access to of health, education, water, sanitation, • We have a responsibility to communications, constructively infrastructure manage should and be diverse social identities in realized across policy and ways that lead to a more practice. inclusive superordinate • We should remain diligent atrocities as articulated in about the global norm of R2P increasing participation by women in decision-making Conclusion and Daron Acemoglu is a Turkish-born Oxfam American economist of Armenian origin. A summarizes: “‘Gender' is not professor at MIT, he is among the ten most the optional extra which we cited economists in the world. In a 2017 simply piece advocating for the role of civil society, dialogue. As can't manage in fragile contexts, because we Acemoglu have more urgent things to reminding ourselves that we do not live in do. gender normal times, that the future of our much inequality must be heart and cherished institutions depends not on centre fragility others but on ourselves, and that we are all both individually responsible for our institutions. women's If we lose them to a would-be strongman, peace we have only ourselves to blame. We are the Tackling of programming, to secure rights and promote and stability in such contexts.”lxxxix • wrote: “We have to keep last defense.”xc Indeed, we are the last defense. The Finally, threats of internal, country which we have become is not the regional, one for which we must settle nor is it the or nternational be one to which we must acclimatize as stable “normal.” We can be the answer to our own governance and economic prayers. Each of us has responsibility for conditions, as the country that we have made and, playing with the role of active citizen in the best sense, international and regional each of us have our own unique points of human and leverage to leave an indelible positive a impression in the making of a more the inclusive, fair, and just society. Together, responsibility to help protect we can commit to taking the collective populations action necessary to protect and sustain our armed conflict mitigated can by as well cooperation treaties rights – commitment laws including to from mass democratic values, rather than buckling in to fear and insularity. As President Obama reminded us just days before leaving office, “change only happens when ordinary people get involved, and they get engaged, and they come together to demand it.”xci To not do so, and to take our democracy for granted by resting in the erroneous comfort that “it can't happen here,” is only to invite the fulfillment of our darkest nightmares. Endnotes i Beverly Gage, “Reading the Classic Novel that Predicted Trump,” The New York Times (January 17, 2017), accessed on February 11, 2017 at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/books/review/classic-novel-that-predicted-trump-sinclarlewis-it-cant-happen-here.html?_r=0. ii Ibid. iii Jean-Paul Sartre, “On Genocide,” eds. Richard A. Falk, Gabriel Kolko, and Robert Jay Lifton, Crimes of War (New York, NY: Random House, 1971), p. 534. iv See Roger W. Smith’s “Human Destructiveness and Politics: The Twentieth Century as an Age of Genocide,” in Isidor Wallimann and Michael N. Dobkowski (eds.), Genocide and the Modern Age: Etiology and Case Studies of Mass Death (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000), 21. v R. J. Rummel, Death by Government (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1994). vi Martin Luther King, Jr., Why We Can’t Wait (New York, NY: Penguin, 1963), 120. vii Native News Online Staff, “US Presidents in Their Own Words Concerning American Indians,” (February 14, 2016), accessed on February 15, 2017 at http://nativenewsonline.net/currents/us-presidents-words-concerning-american-indians/. viii For a critical review, see Alex Alvarez, Native America and the Question of Genocide (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015). Also see Lindsay Glauner, “The Need for Accountability and Reparations: 1830-1976 the United States Government’s Role in the Promotion, Implementation, and Execution of the Crime of Genocide against Native Americans,” DePaul Law Review, vol. 51, 2002. ix Mary Annette Pember, “When Will U.S. Apologize for Boarding School Genocide?,” Indian Country Media Network (June 19, 2015), accessed on June 22, 2015 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/06/19/when-will-us-apologize-boardingschool-genocide-160797?page=0%2C2. x Bureau of Indian Affairs, US Department of the Interior, “Gover Apologies for BIA’s Misdeeds,” (September 8, 2000), accessed on November 8, 2013 at http://www.bia.gov/idc/groups/public/documents/text/idc011935.pdf. xi Civil Rights Congress, We Charge Genocide: The Crime of Government Against the Negro People (New York, 1951). xii Civil Rights Congress, We Charge Genocide, xi. xiii Ibid, xii. xiv Ibid, 195, 196. xv William Patterson, The Man Who Cried Genocide (New York: International Publishers, 1971), 206. xvi Jean-Paul Sartre, On Genocide, and a Summary of the Evidence and the Judgments of the International War Crimes Tribunal (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968). xvii Ann Curthoys and John Docker, “Defining Genocide,” ed., Dan Stone, The Historiography of Genocide (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 25. xviii Accessed on February 11, 2017 at http://usgenocide.org/. xix James E. Waller, Confronting Evil: Engaging Our Responsibility to Prevent Genocide (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). Among others, the primary early warning systems reviewed in this research include Gregory Stanton’s “Ten Stages of Genocide” (2013, http://genocidewatch.net/genocide-2/8-stages-of-genocide); Barbara Harff’s ongoing models of risk assessment (see her most recent “Risks of New Onsets of Genocide and Politicide in 2013,” http://www.gpanet.org/content/risks-new-onsets-genocide-and-politicide-2013); the Minority Rights Group International’s “Peoples under Threat” (2014, http://www.minorityrights.org/12369/peoples-under-threat/peoples-under-threat-2014.html); the University of Sydney’s “Atrocity Forecasting Project” (http://sydney.edu.au/arts/research/atrocity_forecasting/); the Fund for Peace’s “CAST: Conflict Assessment Framework” (2014, http://library.fundforpeace.org/library/cfsir1418castmanual2014-english-03a.pdf; the “Early Warning Project,” a joint initiative of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College (http://www.earlywarningproject.com); the Sentinel Project’s “Risk Factor List” (https://thesentinelproject.org/what-we-do/early-warning-system/risk-factors-list/; the World Bank’s “Worldwide Governance Indicators” (http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi); the European Commission’s “Checklist for Root Causes of Conflict” (http://www.eplo.org/assets/files/3.%20Resources/EU%20Documents/European%20Commissio n_Programming%20Fiche_Conflict_Prevention.pdf ); ECOWAS’ “Early Warning and Response Network” (http://www.ecowarn.org); the Forum on Early Warning and Early Response-Africa (http://www.fewer-international.org/pages/africa); the International Crisis Group’s “CrisisWatch” (http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/publication-type/crisiswatch); the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights’ Compilation of Risk Factors and Legal Norms for the Prevention of Genocide (New York: The Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, 2011); and the United Nations’ “Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes” (2014, http://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/adviser/pdf/framework%20of%20analysis%20for%20atr ocity%20crimes_en.pdf). All websites listed in this note were accessed on January 15, 2015. xx These defining features of governance are taken from the “Worldwide Governance Indicators” project, accessed on January 16, 2015 at http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi. xxi Barbara Harff, “No Lessons Learned from the Holocaust? Assessing Risks of Genocide and Political Mass Murder since 1955,” American Political Science Review, vol. 97 (2003), p. 63. xxii xxiii United Nations, “Framework of Analysis,” 15. Ayesha Rascoe, “Trump Accuses US Spy Agencies of Nazi Practices over ‘Phony’ Russia Dossier,” Reuters (January 12, 2017), accessed on February 12, 2017 at http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-idUSKBN14V18L. xxiv Jon Swaine, “Four more journalists get felony charges after covering inauguration unrest,” The Guardian (January 24, 2017), accessed on February 10, 2017 at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jan/24/journalists-charged-felonies-trumpinauguration-unrest. xxv Jonah Engel Bromwich, “Felony Charges for Journalists Arrested at Inauguration Protests Raise Fears for Press Freedom,” The New York Times (January 25, 2017), accessed on February 12, 2017 at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/business/media/journalists-arrested-trumpinauguration.html?WT.nav=top-news&action=click&clickSource=storyheading&emc=edit_nn_20170126&hp=&module=b-lede-package-region&nl=morningbriefing&nlid=67962175&pgtype=Homepage®ion=top-news&te=1&_r=0. xxvi See Human Rights Watch, accessed on February 13, 2017 at https://www.hrw.org/worldreport/2017/country-chapters/turkey. xxvii Annie Karni, “Trump Pits His Staff Against the Media,” Politico (January 11, 2017), accessed on February 13, 2017 at http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/trump-pressconference-paid-staffers-media-233496. xxviii Michael M. Grynbaum, “Trump Strategist Stephen Bannon Says Media Should ‘Keep Its Mouth Shut’,” The New York Times (January 26, 2017) accessed on February 12, 2017 at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/business/media/stephen-bannon-trump-newsmedia.html?WT.nav=top-news&action=click&clickSource=storyheading&emc=edit_nn_20170127&hp=&module=b-lede-package-region&nl=morningbriefing&nlid=67962175&pgtype=Homepage®ion=top-news&te=1. xxix Dean Obeidallah, “Donald Trump’s Most Bone-Chilling Tweet,” CNN (February 6, 2017), accessed on February 12, 2017 at http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/04/opinions/donald-trumpsmost-bone-chilling-tweet-obeidallah-opinion/index.html. xxx Christopher R. Browning, “Dangers I Didn’t See Coming: ‘Tyranny of the Minority’ and an Irrelevant Press,” VOX (January 18, 2017), accessed on February 12, 2017 at http://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/1/18/14303960/tyranny-minority-trump-democracygerrymander-media. xxxi Phillip Rucker, “Stephen Miller Says White House Will Fight for Travel Ban, Advances False Voter Fraud Claims,” The Washington Post (February 12, 2017), accessed on February 12, 2017 at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/02/12/stephen-miller-sayswhite-house-will-fight-for-travel-ban-advances-false-voter-fraud-claims/?hpid=hp_hp-top-tablemain_pwr-miller-1125am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.b73abf442b55. xxxii Josh Lowe, “US Now Classed a ‘Flawed Democracy,’ Report Finds,” Newsweek (January 26, 2017), accessed on February 12, 2017 at http://www.newsweek.com/us-flawed-democracybritain-brexit-economist-intelligence-unit-new-report-548458?rx=us. xxxiii xxxiv See http://www.gallup.com for daily trackings. Monty G. Marshall and Benjamin R. Cole, Global Report 2014: Conflict, Governance, and State Fragility, (Vienna, VA: Center for Systemic Peace, 2014), p. 21. xxxv United Nations Security Council, Doc. S/2004/616 (August 23, 2004), 4. xxxvi Jamil Dakwar, “All International Laws Trump’s Muslim Ban is Breaking,” Al Jazeera (February 2, 2017), accessed on February 13, 2017 at http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/02/international-laws-trump-muslim-banbreaking-170202135132664.html. xxxvii MSNBC video accessed on February 13, 2017 at http://www.msnbc.com/morningjoe/watch/joe-takes-stephen-miller-to-school-on-law-875977283878. xxxviii Dan Merica, “Trump on Waterboarding: ‘We Have to Fight Fire with Fire,’” CNN (January 26, 2017), accessed on February 13, 2017 at http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/25/politics/donaldtrump-waterboarding-torture/index.html. xxxix Julia Manchester, “McCain on Trump Torture Stance: ‘The Law is the Law,’” CNN (January 25, 2017), accessed on February 13, 2017 at http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/25/politics/johnmccain-trump-torture/index.html. xl Adam Goldman, Matt Apuzzo, and Eric Schmitt, “Case of Captive in Yemen Could Test Trump’s Guantanamo Pledge,” The New York Times (February 13, 2017), accessed on February 14, 2017 at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/13/us/yemen-al-qaeda-terrorism-guantanamobay.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=b-ledepackage-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0. xli David Frum, “How to Build an Autocracy,” The Atlantic (March 2017), accessed on February 15, 2017 at https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/03/how-to-build-anautocracy/513872/. xlii Marshall and Cole, Global Report 2014, p. 5. xliii Ibid. xliv Ibid. xlv See, for instance, Nolan McCarty, Keith T. Poole, and Howard Rosenthal, Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches (Boston, MA: MIT Press, 2016). xlvi Sabrina Tavernise, “One Country, Two Tribes,” The New York Times (January 28, 2017), accessed on February 12, 2017 at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/28/opinion/one-countrytwo-tribes.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=MothVisible&moduleDetail=inside-nyt-region-1&module=inside-nyt-region®ion=inside-nytregion&WT.nav=inside-nyt-region&_r=0. xlvii Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, Compilation of Risk Factors and Legal Norms for the Prevention of Genocide (2011), see note 19. xlviii Christopher Ingraham, “Trump Says Sanctuary Cities Are Hotbeds of Crime. Data Say the Opposite,” The Washington Post (January 27, 2017), accessed on February 13, 2017 at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/01/27/trump-says-sanctuary-cities-arehotbeds-of-crime-data-say-the-opposite/?utm_term=.33cf67b6a322. xlix Tal Kopan, “Democrats, Advocates Question ICE Raids after Hundreds of Arrests,” CNN (February 10, 2017), accessed on February 12, 2017 at http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/10/politics/democrats-question-ice-enforcement-raids/index.html. l Quoted material comes from paragraphs 138 and 139, respectively, of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document. See UN Document A/RES/60/1 (October 24, 2005). li Eric Sean Williams, “The End of Society? Defining and Tracing the Development of Fragmentation through the Modern and into the Post-Modern Era” (2010), p. 47. Dissertation for the Catholic University of America, accessed on February 15, 2017 at http://cuislandora.wrlc.org/islandora/object/etd%3A16. lii World Bank, “Social Fragmentation,” p. 175, accessed on February 15, 2017 at http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPOVERTY/Resources/335642-1124115102975/15551991124115187705/ch6.pdf. liii Aaron Blake, “Donald Trump’s Full Inauguration Speech Transcript, Annotated,” The Washington Post (January 20, 2017), accessed on February 13, 2017 at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/20/donald-trumps-full-inaugurationspeech-transcript-annotated/?utm_term=.56b93ef41ce9#annotations:11203651. liv Stanton, “Ten Stages of Genocide.” lv Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 2016/17: The State of the World’s Human Rights (UK: London, 2017), p. 24. lvi Yara Bayoumy, “Trump’s Anti-Muslim Rhetoric is Fueling More Islamophobic Incidents,” The Huffington Post (January 3, 2017), accessed on February 13, 2017 at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trumpislamophobia_us_57687474e4b015db1bca5fb4. lvii Ibid. lviii Nour Tkeily and Emilie Bruneau, “The Politics and Real-World Consequences of Minority Dehumanization,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, vol. 43, 2017. lix Kenneth Roth, “We Are on the Verge of Darkness,” Foreign Policy (January 12, 2017), accessed on February 12, 2017 at http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/12/we-are-on-the-verge-ofdarkness-populism-human-rightsdemocracy/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Campaign&u tm_term=Flashpoints. lx OECD, Supporting Statebuilding in Situations of Conflict and Fragility: Policy Guidance (DAC Guidelines and Reference Series, 2011), 34. lxi lxii Ibid. Pew Research Center, “On Views of Race and Inequality, Blacks and Whites are Worlds Apart,” (June 27, 2016), accessed on February 13, 2017 at http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/06/27/on-views-of-race-and-inequality-blacks-and-whitesare-worlds-apart/. lxiii Alana Semuels, “Good School, Rich School: Bad School, Poor School,” The Atlantic (August 25, 2016), accessed on February 13, 2017 at https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/property-taxes-and-unequalschools/497333/. lxiv Corydon Ireland, “The Costs of Inequality: Education is the Key to All,” US News & World Report (February 16, 2016), accessed on February 13, 2017 at http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-02-16/the-costs-of-inequality-education-is-the-keyto-it-all. lxv Alvin Powell, “The Costs of Inequality: Money = Quality Health, Care = Longer Life,” Harvard Gazette (February 22, 2016), accessed on February 13, 2017 at http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/02/money-quality-health-care-longer-life/. lxvi Jonathan Kirshner, “America, America,” Los Angeles Review of Books (January 15, 2017), accessed on February 12, 2017 at http://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/america-america/. lxvii Mary Caprioli, “Gendered Conflict,” Journal of Peace Research 37 (2000), 51-68. lxviii Erik Melander, “Gender Inequality and Intrastate Armed Conflict,” International Studies Quarterly 49 (2005), 695-714. lxix OECD, “Armed Violence Reduction: Enabling Development” (2009), 33. Accessed on February 21, 2015 at http://www.poa-iss.org/kit/2009_OECD-DAC_Guidlines.pdf. lxx Institute for Economics and Peace, “Structures of Peace” (2011), accessed on February 21, 2015 at http://economicsandpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Structures-of-Peace.pdf. lxxi Valerie M. Hudson, Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill, Mary Caprioli, and Chad F. Emmett, Sex & World Peace (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012). lxxii Laura Bassett, “The UN Sent 3 Foreign Women to the US to Assess Gender Equality. 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Simon, “Building State Capacity to Prevent Atrocity Crimes: Implementing Pillars One and Two of the R2P Framework,” Policy Analysis Brief (The Stanley Foundation, September 2012), 3. lxxxv OECD, Supporting Statebuilding in Situations of Conflict and Fragility: Policy Guidance (OECD Publishing, 2011), pp. 37-38. lxxxvi Scott Straus, “Retreating from the Brink: Theorizing Mass Violence and the Dynamics of Restraint,” Perspectives on Politics 10 (2012), 343-362. lxxxvii Madeleine K. Albright and Richard S. Williamson, “The United States and R2P: From Words to Action,” 2013, 14. lxxxviii Pauline H. 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