Ethnic Cleansing: A Sociological Examination

Putting forward the argument that the strength of democracies can be measured in how well minorities - especially ethnic and racial minorities - are treated by the majority, Larry May’s Ethnic Cleansing maintains that unjust ethnic cleansing is one of the greatest internal challenges to the modern institutions of pluralistic and multicultural states.

In order to determine what constitutes the crime of ethnic cleansing, this book details crucial conceptual issues around the topic, such as what ethnicity means, what ethnic cleansing claims to achieve, why these acts are invariably harmful, and the conditions of restitution, reparation, and reconciliation - affirming that ethnic cleansing must be countered by existing institutions such as the International Criminal Court, which is uniquely situated to prosecute ethnic cleansing.

The first major study to analyze ethnic cleansing from an explicitly normative and conceptual perspective in the last decade, the increase in number and complexity of cases of ethnic cleansing makes this a timely book to understand the challenges that confront contemporary society.

Larry May is an internationally renowned social/political philosopher and legal theorist who has published more than three dozen books. He is W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy and Law Emeritus at Vanderbilt University and Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis. He has published over three dozen books including a four-volume study of the moral foundations of international criminal law, and a three-volume history of legal and political thought. He is the co-author of Applied Ethics: A Multicultural Approach (Routledge, 2016) and author of Trafficking and the Conscience of Humanity (Routledge, 2024).