Mass Death, Population Decline, and Deprivation: A Capability Approach

Genocide and mass violence research is predominantly focused on asymmetric, large-scale, deliberately targeted physical violence over relatively short timespans and involving stable perpetrator and victim groups. Recent attempts, such as Dirk Moses’s, to redefine the field in order to be more inclusive of politically targeted groups, persecuted over longer time-spans within and across states go in the right direction but still fall short I argue. Instead, I propose a capability-based approach, following Amartya Sen, that enables consideration of a far broader range of violence’s consequences such as starvation, systemic malnutrition, excess mortality from disease, and economic deprivation. After outlining the capability approach, I apply it to two case studies: (1) patterns of depopulation under (asymmetric) colonial violence that deprived indigenous communities of the capability to sustain their populations through violence, disease, and famines, a case which is already being scrutinized by genocide researchers; (2) sustained and much less asymmetric violence in the Central African Republic with high mortality, malnutrition, and economic deprivation. In both cases, the toll of physical violence is substantial, but violence’s indirect consequences are far more lethal. I argue, that if we are to take seriously victims’ suffering and loss of lives–a concern that ultimately normatively underwrites atrocity and conflict research–only the capability approach can encompass these cases.