State Identities and the Homogenisation of Peoples

Why are forced displacement, ethnic cleansing and genocide an enduring feature of state systems? In this ground-breaking book, Heather Rae locates these practices of ‘pathological homogenisation’ in the processes of state building. Political elites have repeatedly used cultural resources to redefine bounded political communities as exclusive moral communities, from which outsiders must be expelled. Showing that these practices predate the age of nationalism, Rae examines cases from both pre-nationalist and nationalist eras: the expulsion of the Jews from fifteenth century Spain, the persecution of the Huguenots under Louis XIV, and in the twentieth century, the Armenian genocide, and ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia. She argues that those atrocities prompted the development of international norms of legitimate state behaviour that increasingly define sovereignty as conditional. Rae concludes by examining two ‘threshold’ cases - the Czech Republic and Macedonia - to identify the factors that may inhibit pathological homogenization as a method of state-building.

• Original study of both the factors that contribute to genocide and ethnic cleansing and those that may inhibit such practices • Well-balanced combination of theoretical innovation and detailed historical sociological case studies spanning five centuries • Broad interdisciplinary appeal: international relations, history, sociology and law

Introduction; 1. State formation and pathological homogenisation; 2. The ‘Other’ within Christian Europe: state-building in early modern Spain; 3. State-building in early modern France: Louis XIV and the Huguenots; 4. Pathological homogenisation and Turkish state-building: the Armenian genocide of 1915–1916; 5. ‘Ethnic cleansing’ and the break up of Yugoslavia; 6. Evolving international norms; 7. On the threshold: the Czech republic and Macedonia; Conclusion.

‘Rae … offers an important account of state homogenisation and brings strong empirical observations to the attention of International Relations.’ International Affairs

\'… fascinating …\'. Journal of Peace Research