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  • Introduction:Varieties of Political Economy: Theories and Case Studies
  • Herbert Hirsch (bio)

Volume 10, issue 1 of Genocide Studies International is a special issue on the political economy of genocide. The editors of Genocide Studies International do their best to examine issues on the “cutting edge” of genocide studies. In pursuit of this goal we attempt to cover topics, which have been, at least in our estimation, not examined in detail, and which we believe deserve greater attention in the literature. This is one of those topics. While there is at least one recent book that directly examines the political economy of genocide, Garry Leech’s, Capitalism: A Structural Genocide, which is reviewed in this issue, it follows the all too familiar pattern of assuming that any discussion of political economy involves a certain paradigm.

In fact, the mere mention of “political economy” brings forth numerous images in the minds of readers and researchers. First and foremost, it is most likely that the term brings forth images of Marxist analysis or neo-Marxist critiques of existing literature. This is unfortunate since there exists a large variety of theories and approaches to the study of political economy. That is the very reason we start the present issue with an exploration of the varieties of approaches to the study of political economy in general and the political economy of genocide in particular. It is important to not allow oneself to get sidetracked into thinking that there is a single, dominant accepted approach to the study of political economy. The wide range of definitions—all the way from rational choice theory to Marxist critiques of capitalism are explained in the first article by William Newmann, “Introduction to Political Economy: Theories and Applications.”

Newmann notes:

While this journal often focuses on how governments respond (or don’t respond) to humanitarian tragedies, this discussion of political economy points to the issues that governments typically see as their overriding priority: economic growth in their home nations. Though scholars of political violence and genocide often lament that idealist issues such as humanitarian tragedies typically take a back seat to realist issues such as great power rivalry, they also should consider another set of calculations made by decision makers—those related to economic issues. A look at international political economy explains how governments frame their economic challenges of today and tomorrow.

He then proceeds to explicate the various approaches to the study of political economy and the theories involved, pointing out that there are basically “three main theoretical paradigms: Economic Liberalism, Economic Nationalism, and Economic Structuralism. Economic Structuralism has two variants: Marxism and Dependency.” He goes on to [End Page 1] explain these using very clear examples and concludes that the ongoing debates over the theories and politics of political economy are by no means settled.

This examination of the varieties of political economy sets the background for the specific case studies in this issue. Since there has been so little recent research on the political economy of genocide we were not able to present a coherent or unified examination of the subject. Instead we present a series of case studies designed to elaborate some of the conceptual underpinnings discussed in Newmann’s article and to hopefully stimulate further research on this important and neglected aspect of genocide studies. While there are many issues we wished to address, we could not find authors to cover them all. Consequently, we focus on a broad range of issues relating to the political economy of genocide.

The first article following Newmann’s introduction examines the emerging relationship between climate change and what Alexander Alvarez refers to as “the genocidal impulse.” This is one of the first examinations of the relationship between climate change and genocide, and Alvarez fits it into the discussion of political economy by tracing “some of the ways in which climate-induced stresses may contribute to the development of conflict over resources and borders, and persecutory ideologies and practices against groups and populations defined as dangerous and/or superfluous.”

He is very clear in drawing the connection between the impact of climate change on political and economic systems and notes that the impact will “depend on the social...

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