Modernity and Communal Violence

• In Event: 291 - Regular Session. Nations/Nationalism

Abstract

This paper uses comparative-historical methods to explore the impact of modernity on communal violence, including genocide. It offers evidence that modernity contributed to a dramatic rise in communal violence but that such violence has plummeted among early modernizers over the past 70 years. Next, the paper combines elements of the classic and revised modernist positions to explain both the rise and the decline of communal violence among early modernizers. Finally, it uses this framework to analyze the rise and decline of communal violence in Germany.

Author

• Matthew Lange, McGill University