The Dark Side of Democracy
Explaining Ethnic Cleansing

The Dark Side of Democracy is the most comprehensive study of ethnic cleansing.

Michael Mann (Author)

9780521538541, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 1 November 2004

592 pages, 3 maps 11 tables
22.8 x 16.5 x 3.7 cm, 0.78 kg

'Michael Mann's impressive The Dark Side of Democracy makes a giant step toward specifying the concrete social studies and circumstances that produce such results … It is a major achievement.' New Left Review

A new theory of ethnic cleansing based on the most terrible cases (colonial genocides, Armenia, the Nazi Holocaust, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Rwanda) and cases of lesser violence (early modern Europe, contemporary India, and Indonesia). Murderous cleansing is modern, 'the dark side of democracy'. It results where the demos (democracy) is confused with the ethnos (the ethnic group). Danger arises where two rival ethno-national movements each claims 'its own' state over the same territory. Conflict escalates where either the weaker side fights because of aid from outside, or the stronger side believes it can deploy sudden, overwhelming force. Escalation is not simply the work of 'evil elites' or 'primitive peoples'. It results from complex interactions between leaders, militants, and 'core constituencies' of ethno-nationalism. Understanding this complex process helps us devise policies to avoid ethnic cleansing in the future.

1. The argument
2. Ethnic cleansing in former times
3. Two versions of 'we, the people'
4. Genocidal democracies in the New World
5. Armenia, I: into the danger zone
6. Armenia, II: genocide
7. Nazis, I: radicalization
8. Nazis, II: fifteen hundred perpetrators
9. Nazis, III: genocidal careers
10. Germany's allies and auxiliaries
11. Communist cleansing: Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot
12. Yugoslavia, I: into the danger zone
13. Yugoslavia, II: murderous cleansing
14. Rwanda, I: into the danger zone
15. Rwanda, II: genocide
16. Counterfactual cases: India and Indonesia
17. Combating ethnic cleansing in the world today.

Subject Areas: Political structures: democracy [JPHV], Political science & theory [JPA], Social & political philosophy [HPS], Second World War [HBWQ], The Holocaust [HBTZ1], Genocide & ethnic cleansing [HBTZ], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], General & world history [HBG]