Abstract
Canada’s recent attempts at understanding and addressing issues related to mass ethnic violence and genocide are reflective of international social trends seeking appropriate methods of societal reconciliation and criminological responses. The 2013 Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Committee for investigating the abuses and experiences of Aboriginal children during the Indian Residential Schools system brought to the fore of Canadian consciousness both the violence of Canada’s colonial past and the necessity for expression, resolution, and reconciliation (Stanton, 2011). In 2009, the indictment of Rwandan foreign nationals involved in the Rwandan genocide was an indication of the current trend towards domestic prosecution of foreign national war criminals and people involved in genocidal activities. Finally, the trend towards the increasing governance of previously relatively ungoverned areas as a way of redressing previously traumatized places and preventing future atrocities is reflected in the circuit courts of the eastern Canadian Arctic (p. 217). These events have brought to the Canadian consciousness the complexities associated with addressing past mass traumas, public and governmental recognition, and the necessary healing and recovery after episodes of mass ethnic violence. As Brannigan states in his exploration of the criminological responses to genocide and ethnic violence, “there are gaps between memory (truth telling through the recollection), justice (establishing culpability of specific individuals according to stringent legal standards based on such revelations), and reconciliation (the subsequent ‘healing’ of previously divided communities)” (p. 195).
Augustine Brannigan’s study on the social psychological and criminological responses to genocidal activities is a fascinating and detailed contribution to reframing the foundations of predominant interpretations of the genocidal mentality, social discourses, and the various transformations of the domestic and international legal response in contexts that have experienced mass ethnic violence. The title intentionally evokes Hannah Arendt’s (1963/2006) interpretation and coverage of the Adolf Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1961. The influence of Arendt’s coverage of the Israeli trials came from the stark conclusion that the most horrific and brutal violence in human history was carried out by seemingly normal people within a complex bureaucracy carrying out their duties as any other worker might in a normal desk job. The understanding that authority established a kind of natural “agentic” state that decreased people’s sense of culpability, responsibility, and guilt spurred both controversy and a wave of social psychological studies, most notably the in/famous Milgram experiments. Through his own fieldwork in Rwanda, recent studies on genocide and the Holocaust, and the various international and domestic responses, Brannigan offers what he terms a “criminological odyssey” that seeks to redress perceived shortcomings of the literature grounded in Arendt’s original “banality of evil” thesis.
Brannigan’s book is divided thematically into three major components, which together reflect a surprising breadth of scholarship. The first section offers an evaluation of Arendt’s banality of evil thesis and its exposition within social psychological thinking. He evaluates a considerable body of research into Adolf Eichmann and his ascribed culpability and role within the atrocities of the Holocaust. Out of this, the authority thesis of the original Milgram experiment cannot stand up to the criticisms and revisions of later experiments. Rather, adherence to duty might actually interpret Eichmann’s case in more astute terms. The second section seeks to ameliorate misconceptions implicit within these earlier social psychological studies by introducing Norbert Elias’ imaginative work. His engagement with Elias allows Brannigan an historical interpretation of the human subject that establishes a relationship between modernizing processes and the development of genocidal mentalities. The third section offers an exploration of the development of the cosmopolitan/international legal and criminological responses to genocidal activities—its paradoxes and complications. He evaluates the extent to which the truth and reconciliation commissions that have been developed and deployed throughout the world are effective in contexts that have experienced great trauma. Brannigan traces the intentional European progression of society from sovereign-based forms of governance that predisposes a genocidal mentality towards broad forms of democratic political participation that restrain sovereignty politics. One of Brannigan’s major normative standpoints is revealed in the last section of the conclusion where he advocates for a responsible government that evokes widespread collective political participation and representation. What we see in Brannigan’s study is both the complicated progression towards effective cosmopolitan law and the increasing localization of ways in which societies apprehend, address, and redress recent and historical atrocities.
Brannigan offers several telling insights into the field, especially his implicit critical standpoint towards essentializing historical/ancient conflict as the root of genocidal activities in favor of the complicated and contingent history of policies developed during colonialism. One implication that I take from this standpoint is that we need to examine how historical symbols and events serve as virtual signifiers that can be employed/activated/be put into the service of contemporaneous concerns and anxieties. I wonder if Brannigan’s research, while enormously comprehensive and thoughtful, might benefit from broader interpretations of the modern genesis of genocide in the development of nation-state politics, which may also provide a counterpoint to the social psychology interpretations of reduced culpability in the presence of a strong sovereign. For instance, Lieberman (2006) suggests through close historical research that it was not just the government that perpetrated ethnic violence, but that whole swathes of the populace were involved in practically each conflict.
To my mind, Brannigan’s work allows scholars to think about the extent to which broad social discourses contribute to the development of ethnic conflict and genocidal events. Readers of this journal might want to consider with Brannigan’s insights the normative and meaningful frameworks that motivated people to participate. Understanding that the response to genocide is complicated by the broad social legitimation of the eradication of certain racial, ethnic, and other demographics within state borders is also implicitly acknowledging the manner in which social discourses frame judgment and ethical relations of a people. For instance, another interpretation of the social psychological experiments influenced by Arendt’s thesis and Milgram’s original studies might actually suggest that deference to authority and duty rather than an essential psychological characteristic is a social, historical, and contingent experience of normative belonging. These social psychological studies do not necessarily capture the fields of normativity, the significance of the collective consciousness, and rationalities embedded within certain historical atrocities. Could we not expand this understanding of the subject by the assumption that people act in a world of broad societal affective discourses that frame what people find important? If we begin with this understanding, then we can move towards making the link between the social psychological and the international community’s response to help prevent/curb genocidal activities more tenable—this is precisely the kind of thinking that Brannigan’s text works towards.
I am appreciative of Brannigan’s evaluation and revision of the studies on authority post-Milgram, though it appears at times that he may be over-reliant on David Cesarani’s (2006) recent and authoritative biography of Eichmann for his interpretation of Arendt. If this is so, then this could limit his interpretation of Arendt’s deceptively complicated thesis. In one mention of Arendt in particular, he seems to have evoked earlier misinterpretations of the “banality of evil” thesis. After quoting Cesarani’s derisive interpretation, he writes, “When we think about genocide, we have been conditioned to think of the ‘banality’ of evil. Were we to take the perspectives of its advocates, there is nothing banal about it” (p. 21). Yet, this seems to be a conflation of the social psychological experiments with the ideas of Arendt, as well as a reaffirmation of earlier critiques of the thesis that were based on fundamental misinterpretations. It is my intuition that the legacy of the social psychological research has led to a flattening of Arendt’s ideas and that if we go back to the source, her ideas might in fact help achieve some of the goals and intentions of this book.
For instance, two of the main goals of Brannigan’s text are to reformulate, or nuance, understandings of genocidal mentalities and expose the complexities of the different criminological responses to large-scale ethnic violence. Judith Butler (2011), in summarizing Arendt, writes that it’s not the evil of such atrocities that has become banal, but the fact that genocide is reflective of the general tendency in modern society to destroy ethical thoughtfulness. If we take this perspective, we might also get close to how Brannigan wants to revise the authority thesis and reconstruct a social historical ontology to apprehend the possibility of such events. In fact, by acknowledging Arendt’s assumption that genocide is unprecedented and somehow an implicit aspect of the modern project (Bauman, 2001), we might be able to reformulate atomistic conceptions of the subject that both mainstream criminology and social psychology assume.
I see this book being an excellent reference for understanding both the academic and political legacy of the banality of evil thesis, with a strong evaluation of the critical contributions and complications that subsequent social psychological experiments bring to bear on that initial windfall of an insight. Because of this breadth, I see it to be essential reading for both expanding and historicizing the significance of some of the most significant studies of the previous century. Furthermore, it provides a unique contribution to genocide studies by connecting the different social responses to genocidal activities to the fields of social psychology and criminology. Dr. Brannigan’s rigor and comprehensiveness within the book allow it to be suitable for upper undergraduate and graduate level work, as well as an original and important piece of academic research for scholars working in genocide, trauma, and conflict studies.