Benjamin Valentino

Benjamin Andrew Valentino (born 1971) is a political scientist and professor at Dartmouth College. His 2004 book Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century, adapted from his PhD thesis and published by Cornell University Press, has been reviewed in several academic journals.

Analysis of genocide and mass killing

In Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century, Valentino sees ruler's motives, rather than ideology, as the key factor explaining the onset of genocide. Valentino says that ideology, racism, and paranoia can shape leaders' beliefs for why genocide and mass killing can be justified. Valentino outlines two major category of mass killings, namely dispossessive mass killings and coercive mass killings. The first category includes ethnic cleansing, killings that accompany agrarian reforms in some Communist states and killings during colonial expansion, among others. The second category includes killings during counterinsurgency warfare and killings as part of imperialist conquests by the Axis powers during World War II, among others. Valentino does not see authoritarianism or totalitarianism as explaining mass killing.

Valentino develops his mass killing concept through eight-case studies, three of which fit the legal definition of genocide (the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, and the Rwandan genocide), while the other five are about politicide cases of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, Communist China under Mao Zedong, Democratic Kampuchea under the Khmer Rouge, the anti-communist regime in Guatemala (the Guatemalan genocide), and Afghanistan during the Soviet–Afghan War. Although he does not consider ideology or regime type as an important factor that explains these killings, Valentino outlines Communist mass killing as a subtype of dispossessive mass killing, which is considered as a complication of original theory his book is based on. In regard to Communist mass killings, Valentino does not connect them and only discusses the Stalin era, the Mao era, and the Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia, and excludes counter-insurgency mass killings, which he groups in his book with similar killings by capitalist regimes; they were not ideologically driven but resulted from the same motivations as non-Communist states.

Selected works

• Bach-Lindsay, Dylan; Huth, Paul; Valentino, Benjamin (May 2004). "Draining the Sea: Mass Killing and Guerrilla Warfare". International Organization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 58 (2): 375–407. doi:10.1017/S0020818304582061. JSTOR 3877862. S2CID 154296897.
• Croco, Sarah; Huth, Paul; Valentino, Benjamin (April 2006). "Covenants without the Sword: International Law and the Protection of Civilians in Times of War". World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 58 (3): 339–377. doi:10.1353/wp.2007.0004. ISSN 0043-8871. JSTOR 40060139. S2CID 153623647.
• Ulfelder, Jay; Valentino, Benjamin (February 2008). "Assessing Risks of State-Sponsored Mass Killing". Social Science Research Network. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1703426. SSRN 1703426.
• Valentino, Benjamin (2005) [2003]. Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century (1st paperback ed.). Itacha, NY: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0801472732. JSTOR 10.7591/j.ctt24hg9z.
• Valentino, Benjamin (May 2014). "Why We Kill: The Political Science of Political Violence against Civilians". Annual Review of Political Science. Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews. 17 (1): 89–103. doi:10.1146/annurev-polisci-082112-141937.