State Identities and the Homogenization of Peoples.

By Heather Rae. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 372p. $65.00, $24.00 paper.

Human beings are capable of astounding cruelty as well as profound generosity. That Heather Rae can document four examples of extraordinary brutality across 500 years of history should not surprise us. This pattern deserves, as she points out, more attention than it has thus far received from observers of international affairs. In her able hands, we learn about the persecution of Jews in fifteenth- through seventeenth-century Spain, expulsion of Calvinists from France in the seventeenth century, genocide of Armenians during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the early twentieth century, and contemporary ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. Throughout, she focuses on how elites seek cultural homogenization to bolster the legitimacy of their rule.

Rae labels these examples of “pathological homogenization,” by which she means the violent removal (by assimilation, expulsion, or death) of groups seen as “outsiders.” The demands of state building, she argues, lead to this distinctive form of cultural conflict, in contrast to arguments of other scholars who associate such brutality with virulent nationalism or administrative centralization. This ambitious study offers a thoughtful alternative perspective that places the blame for brutality squarely on the shoulders of elites. The demonstration of similar forms of mass violence both before and during the age of nationalism, for example, downplays the image of unruly masses taking vengeance into their own hands. The exploration of the intersection of international and domestic dimensions of identity places leaders firmly in the middle of competing pressures that drive them to drastic measures to preserve their rule.

The question remains, however, whether these are indeed four cases of a single phenomenon. How representative are these four cases? Are they typical of a general pattern of mass violence, or might they be exceptionally well known precisely because they provoked moral outrage (either at the time, or with historical hindsight)? Rae offers no evidence either way. Rather, she selects cases that will challenge conventional explanations of mass violence that are based on nationalist extremism.

Because she accepts the comparability of the cases, Rae does not explain some of the critical assumptions at work in her use of the notion of pathological homogenization. For example, all four of her cases deal with religion, specifically conflicts between (and among) Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Does religion—perhaps monotheistic religion—create a particular dynamic of cultural conflict? Answers to this question would require exploration of non-European cases, for instance in Asia where Buddhism and Confucianism predominate but come into contact with Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Or what about states that reject the legitimacy of religion outright, such as the Soviet Union, which also practiced violence against segments of its population? Societies can be diverse or homogeneous in a number of ways. Religion need not be the key characteristic that defines cultural identity and hence drives state practices of pathological homogenization.

Because Rae presumes that this type of mass violence is a feature of state building, she makes additional assumptions that preclude avenues of research that might help to explain why techniques of pathological homogenization get used sometimes but not always. All areas of Europe underwent state building, for example. Why do we see pathological homogenization in only some territories? A number of plausible explanations come to mind. Let us assume, following Rae's focus on elites, that leaders have alternative policy options. Under what circumstances do rulers pursue forced assimilation, for example, rather than expulsion or massacre? Maybe nonviolent assimilation proved more successful in circumstances where minority communities had the option of migration, precluding a downward spiral into violent techniques. Perhaps expulsion, in turn, sometimes forestalls slaughter. Is massive violence often perceived as a last resort, or is it always an option enthusiastically embraced? Rae acknowledges that rational leaders make such choices, leading at times to the avoidance of mass violence, as in modern Macedonia and Czechoslovakia. But her case selection based on evidence of mass violence precludes analysis of the conditions under which such violence does or does not occur. Alternatively, disaggregating the concept of pathological homogenization into its parts—assimilation, expulsion and slaughter—would enable us to test when and why certain types of mass violence become intolerable while other forms persist.

As a result of her focus on elites, furthermore, Rae underplays alternative explanations based on structural and populist perspectives. Rather than taking them as instances of state building, we might think of her cases as structural collapse—of the Catholic Church in medieval Europe (her Spanish and French cases), the Ottoman Empire (Turkey), and the Yugoslav federation (Bosnia and Macedonia). Does pathological homogenization ever occur in the absence of structural collapse? In circumstances of structural uncertainty, perhaps culture becomes an especially useful resource, both for those seeking to retain power and those challenging it. Indeed, few of Rae's elites actually carried out massacres with their own hands. What explains their followers' willingness to perpetrate acts of massive violence, as in the Holocaust? If we loosen the assumption that pathological homogenization is the result of state building, in other words, we open up other types of evidence that may be crucial for understanding how—or whether it may be possible—to end the use of mass violence.

Rae sees the solution in the evolution of international norms. She argues that the “international community” can intervene more effectively to prevent pathological homogenization, and the rewards of membership in “Europe” will moderate some leaders. Because of the outrage generated by extraordinary uses of violence (as defined for each historical era), we should see fewer uses of particular techniques of slaughter. However, that is no guarantee that political entrepreneurs will not invent new ones, like airplanes crashing into buildings or suicide bombings. Are these the tactics of state builders, or are we witnessing the transition to a postnational era with new forms of mass violence?