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  • The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing
  • Alex Alvarez
The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing, Michael Mann (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 590 pp., cloth $70.00, 584 pp., pbk. $24.99.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, ethnic identity has again become an important element in much of the collective political violence around the world. Without the polarizing influences of the Cold War, which tended to suppress ethnic identity in favor of national identity, ethnicity has reemerged as a major issue around which a number of regional conflicts have developed and sometimes escalated into ethnic cleansing or genocide. Michael Mann's powerful new book is a timely addition to the literature on ethnically based inter-group violence. In this sweeping examination of the subject, Mann challenges a number of widespread notions about the origins and nature of ethnic cleansing in the modern world and provides some provocative and important new insights into how and why ethnically motivated violence occurs.

At the heart of the author's argument is a very simple question: why do some states perpetrate ethnic cleansing? The first section of the book lays out eight theses that represent the core of Mann's argument. Essentially, Mann contends that ethnic cleansing is largely a modern phenomenon because it represents what he calls "the dark side of democracy," defined as "the perversion through time of either liberal or socialist ideals of democracy" (p. 4). In other words, ethnic cleansing is a modern phenomenon because the notion of the people, so crucial to democratic rule, is sometimes defined in ethnic terms. While ethnic cleansing has occurred in previous [End Page 156] eras, Mann argues that recently it has become more prevalent and deadly; in the past, most societies tended to be less diverse; schisms usually manifested religious or class differences rather than ethnicity. In more modern times, however, ethnicity has increasingly begun to rival other distinctions, even in democratic societies. In places where ethnic identity is conflated with national identity, ethnic groups sometimes define themselves as the only ones to which the benefits and rights of democracy are applicable. This becomes a problem when two distinct ethnic groups claim the same territory: either the weaker claimant fights rather than give in because it expects assistance from outside, or the stronger side employs violence because it feels strong enough to get away with it. This type of ethnic conflict by itself does not necessarily result in violent ethnic cleansing because, as Mann rightly points out, ethnic cleansing typically occurs in politically unstable states or states in crisis—ones that have been radicalized and factionalized through conflicts, such as war.

Mann's portrayal of ethnic cleansing as a contingent phenomenon dependent upon a number of political, social, and ideological factors is a major strength of this work. In addition to his eight theses outlining the necessary conditions and phases of ethnic cleansing, Mann also theorizes an overarching model of power that relates ethnic cleansing to four interrelated sets of power networks that are ideological, economic, military, and political in nature. While these are never overtly and clearly synthesized into the previously described theses, their relevance becomes evident through the case studies examined in later chapters. In the initial section, Mann also outlines the nature and motivations of perpetrators of ethnic cleansing.

After discussing definitions, Mann moves on to the bulk of the book, which analyzes some of the worst examples of twentieth-century genocide, such as the Armenian genocide, the Nazi Holocaust, and the genocides in Rwanda and Yugoslavia. Mann also balances his proposed model with a number of countering cases that show instances in which ethnic tensions and problems did not escalate into murderous ethnic cleansing. While much of the material in these examples will be familiar to readers of genocide literature, Mann's descriptions offer a fresh theoretical analysis. Mann concludes by returning to the eight primary theses and an evaluation of their efficacy in explaining the cases reviewed, along with a brief presentation of a number of policy implications.

Mann's book is a well-researched and well-written theoretical examination of the nature and causes of ethnic cleansing, which challenges...

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