Ethnic cleansing is a term that describes policies aimed at removing members of one ethnic group from a geographical area and establishing a territorial territory dominated by the majority ethnic group. Though such policies have been present throughout history, the political climate of the 20th century led to a level of violence involving forced displacement and mass killings that has never been seen before. These brutal policies were often accompanied by severe human suffering and long-term instability in the countries involved.
While the scholarly literature on the causes of ethnic cleansing has made great strides in the past decade, this article argues that there remains much work to be done. For example, whereas many scholars have focused on the role of wars in ethnic cleansing, few have investigated the pre-war domestic or international conditions that promote or hinder ethnic cleansing.
In its definition of ethnic cleansing, the ICJ explicitly refers to the ‘purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas’. Thus it is important to clarify when the term is used, as in its more general sense it may be applied to a wide variety of policies that have the effect of excluding a particular population from a specific territory and can therefore not be considered genocidal.
Similarly, although scholars such as Bell-Fialkoff argue that the forced resettlement of millions of people by the Assyrians in conquered territories between the ninth and seventh centuries bc constitutes ethnic cleansing, others would not consider such an action to be such because the intent was not to exterminate the target population. The same argument can be applied to the aggressive displacement of Native Americans by white settlers in North America during the 18th and 19th centuries.
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