State failure, genocide and politicide reconsidered
| Author | Gary Uzonyi |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13691481211044654 |
| Published date | 01 February 2023 |
| Date | 01 February 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481211044654
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2023, Vol. 25(1) 83 –101
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/13691481211044654
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State failure, genocide and
politicide reconsidered
Gary Uzonyi
Abstract
State failure is highly threatening to incumbent elites, providing them motive to engage in genocide
or politicide. The destruction of formal institutions may also remove political barriers to employing
such atrocities. Thus, previous scholars expect state failure to increase the likelihood of genocide
and politicide. However, such logic overlooks that these atrocities are government policy, which
require planning and implementation. Since government institutions collapse during state failure,
regime elites will possess little physical ability to commit widespread and systematic killing of their
enemies. Therefore, I expect state failure to be associated with a lower likelihood of genocide and
politicide. Using bivariate probit regression to handle the endogeneity between state failure and
these atrocities, I find strong support for my argument in all country-years since 1946.
Keywords
civil war, genocide, state capacity, state failure
Introduction
Genocide and politicide are the attempted destruction of communal and political groups,
respectively. Why do governments commit these atrocities?1 A common answer focuses
on state failure, which is defined as the complete collapse of central political authority
(see Iqbal and Starr, 2015). State failure results in a period in which the central govern-
ment is unable to provide essential goods and services to the people. For example, in 1998
a controversial election led to civil conflict in Lesotho and the collapse of the LCD gov-
ernment. Widespread arson, violence, and looting resulted, as the government, opposi-
tion, and peacekeepers were unable to maintain the rule of law in the country. Similar
state failures have occurred in Guinea-Bissau, the Ivory Coast, and Somalia to name only
a few since the end of the Cold War. Such collapse often leads to cycles of violence in
which competing factions battle for control of the state (Howard, 2010; Reno, 2003). As
no party retains a monopoly on force, such fighting often results in combatants victimis-
ing civilians as soft targets in an effort to undermine the enemy’s strength and resolve.
Indeed, many scholars view state failure as a necessary condition for genocide or polit-
icide, as political checks on regime elites decrease while the threat they face
Department of Political Science, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA
Corresponding author:
Gary Uzonyi, Department of Political Science, 1001 McClung Tower, The University of Tennessee,
Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
Email: guzonyi@utk.edu
1044654BPI0010.1177/13691481211044654The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsUzonyi
research-article2021
Original Article
84 The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 25(1)
simultaneously increases during these periods (Colaresi and Carey, 2008; Goldsmith
et al., 2013; Harff, 2003) Krain (2000: 41) summarises the conclusions of this literature,
succinctly, ‘Genocides and politicides are almost always the consequences of state fail-
ure’. Yet, several cases of state failure have not resulted in such atrocities. For example,
against the backdrop of the Cold War, where genocide and politicide were more common
(Valentino, 2014), state failure in the Dominican Republic (1963-1965) and Nicaragua
(1979-1980) did not result in genocide or politicide. More recently, state failure in Lesotho
(1998) and the Solomon Islands (2000-2002) also avoided these atrocities. I posit that
while there is great merit in noting the additional turmoil state failure creates, atrocity
scholars have largely overlooked another crucial aspect to state failure: it reduces the
state’s physical capacity to enact policy (Thies, 2015).
Genocide and politicide are widespread and systematic policies. They include the
mass murder of thousands of civilians, and are often accompanied by armed resistance
and scorched earth tactics (Harff, 2003). To accomplish these tasks, government elites
must rely on their control over other institutional actors – for example, the bureaucracy
and military – to perpetrate the violence (DeMeritt, 2012). Even when militias become
involved, such as the Ilaga in the Philippines, Interahamwe in Rwanda, or the Janjaweed
in Sudan, the government plays a significant role in shaping and conducting the violence
– often arming and training these groups (Alvarez, 2006; Stanton, 2015). When the state
fails, planning, coordinating, and conducting such atrocity should become more difficult
because of the collapse of the institutions on which the government relies to gather infor-
mation about its target, communicate with its forces, and maintain command over those
units in the field. Therefore, contrary to existing expectations, I hypothesise that state
failure is associated with a decreased likelihood that the government commits genocide
or politicide.
In addition to addressing this theoretical lacuna in the relationship between state fail-
ure and genocide/politicide, I also innovate on the research design typically used to ana-
lyse this relationship in two ways. First, there is likely an endogenous relationship
between genocide/politicide and state capacity (see Thies, 2004). Yet, studies linking
state failure to these atrocities often do not address this endogenous relationship. Instead,
I use a recursive bivariate probit to model the interdependence between state failure and
genocide/politicide onset. Second, in capturing state failure, scholars often include the
occurrence of violence in their measures. To avoid this second endogeneity problem, I
follow Iqbal and Starr (2015) in using a measure free from the inclusion of violence.
Carefully modelling the relationship between state failure and genocide/politicide in
these ways reveals strong support for my argument: since 1946, state failure has been
associated with a decreased likelihood of genocide or politicide onset.
These results reinforce the argument that physical ability is critical for violence to
occur (Fearon and Laitin, 2003; Tilly, 1978). This research thus contributes to the study
of political violence by further underscoring the importance of physical opportunity in an
actor’s decision calculus. It also contributes to the study of government atrocity, specifi-
cally, by emphasising that institutional capacity matters for conducing such violence.
This is important because observers concerned with preventing the onset of government-
perpetrated genocide or politicide may be focusing on the wrong cases if they tend to look
for state failure as an indicator that increases the risk of these atrocities. Importantly, my
argument is not that state failure decreases violence wholly. The collapse of the govern-
ment’s institutional capacity may provide openings for rebel groups and other non-state
actors to commit violence against civilians. Given space limitations, I do not address
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