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Political and Legal
By G. John Ikenberry
>From Foreign Affairs, November/December 2004
The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing. Michael Mann. New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2004, 584 pp. $70.00 (paper, $24.99)

Ethnic cleansing is typically seen as the work of primitive evildoers
operating outside of modernity. In this important and provocative
book, the distinguished sociologist Mann argues that murderous ethnic
cleansing is in fact an ugly facet of our modern democratic age-that
"it belongs to our own civilization and to us." Mann suggests that
democratization in particular multiethnic settings can create
situations in which "rule by the people" is defined in ethnic terms,
leading a majority group to tyrannize minorities. A "danger zone" is
reached when rival ethnic groups lay claim to the same territory, and
do so with some legitimacy and prospect of success. Often an outgrowth
of an unrelated crisis such as a war, ethnic cleansing breaks out when
the weaker side fights because of the promise of outside aid-as in the
Yugoslav, Rwandan, Kashmiri, and Chechen cases-or when the stronger
side believes it can cleanse a state at considerable profit and little
risk-as in the Armenian and Jewish genocides. Mann’s account is not
the last word on ethnic cleansing, but it certainly is among the most
sophisticated yet.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress