State actions and response following instances of politicide

Abstract

The development of the international human-rights regime in the second half of the 20th century has led to an increased awareness and rhetorical/normative condemnation of outbreaks of ethnopolitica violence. While concerns of sovereignty and protection of critical interests have prevented international intervention in such cases from occurring on the broad scale, the development of the regime means that international awareness and action in various forms should have increased over time. The reaction of the aggressor-state in cases of ethnic violence to these international responses can be expected to increase based on the credibility of the international community's commitment to those actions. This paper presents a two-stage model for examining occurrences of politicide, with the first stage considering the likelihood of international response based on temporal and geographic location and level of issue-area salience. The second stage considers the degree of aggressor-state reaction based on the international actions' placement on a scale from rhetoric to active intervention. The cases of Pakistan in 1971, Rwanda in 1994, and Kosovo in 1998-1999 are examined to substantiate the model.