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Can we Explain the Rwandan Genocide through Rational Choice Theory?

No no: they definitely were

human beings: uniforms, boots.

How to explain? they were created

in the image.

I was a shade.

A different creator made me.

And he in his mercy left nothing of me that would die.

And I fled to him, Floated up weightless, blue,

forgiving - I would say: apologizing -

smoke to omnipotent smoke

that has no face or image

- Poem from a Holocaust survivor (Midlarsky, 2005, p.11)

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The case of the Rwandan farmer in 1994:

Gregoire Magwaza is up at 5 am in the fields as he has been every day for the past 20 years, a

subsistence farmer in the Southern district of Nyraguru. Gregoire has always been kind to his family and

striven to protect them from the strife of the Rwandan civil war, by keeping his head down and picking his

coffee beans. But now, in this early morning of May 2nd, 1994,with the stench of death from last nights

blood letting orgy still lingering in the town, Gregoire is worried. Ever the cautious individual, Gregoire

simply wished for a quiet life for himself and education for his young ones. So when his wife's Tutsi

cousin and her daughters showed up at their farm, three nights before seeking shelter, he was hesitant,

but eventually acquiesced and agreed to hide them. But now with the killings unlikely to stop soon, and

the Interahamwe ever more ruthless, Gregoire is no longer sure of his decision, should the Genocidaires

find the cousin and her daughters, not only would they be killed, but Gregoire and his family would likely

meet the same fate. Not only that, but since he’d lost much of his land to his cunning Tutsi neighbors

three years before, money had been tight, and though he had no aspirations to be a rich man, he did envy

the spoils that his Hutu neighbors were dragging in on a daily basis off Tutsi farms. Not to mention the

fact that regardless of his personal position on the matter, how could he possibly hope to afford the fine

he would be dealt if he himself did not join the killings. What is Gregoire to do?

Introduction:

Genocide has been an increasingly important research area in the twentieth century, as the

technical ability to kill humans at a horrifying rate, and apparently the desire to do so, has increased

exponentially. Before the application of the scientific method to genocide, it was assumed that genocide

was a result of the action of sadists and evil men, a notion that whilst comforting, is entirely naive as well

as counter-productive in attempting to prevent future genocides. In order to come closer to preventing

genocide, politicize or any other form of mass murder we must investigate why it is that regular

individuals ever choose to undertake such an extreme form of violence against their fellow humans (Esses

& Adelman, 2008, Chapter 9). There have been many theories proposed to explain the occurrence of

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genocide, through Social-psychological perspectives, international relations theories, and many others,

the debate continues however as to the dominant explanation for mass-murder. This article shall detail

both of the pre-eminent theories on genocide, namely rational choice theory and Symbolist political

theory, both of which occupy most of the discourse on genocide nowadays. Through focusing on both

economic and political factors within the Rwandan Genocide, this paper shall demonstrate that the

Rwandan elites and a willing Hutu population engaged in rational self-interested calculations to arrive at

the decision to murder, torture and rape hundreds of thousands of Rwandan Batutsi for their personal

advantage. Moreover by focusing on the oft neglected rational benefits for the masses aiding in the

genocide, this paper shall add new dimensions to rational choice theory as it pertains to genocide, that

should hopefully bring us one step closer to creating an encompassing “Theory of Genocide”.

Case Selection:

The Rwandan genocide was chosen in particular because of the dearth of research available on

the topic that has allowed for a more conclusive investigation of the genocide. As well as the fact that the

Rwandan genocide is the only commonly accepted genocide where the population willingly and widely

took part in the killings. Thus presenting a unique opportunity to study the motivations of the masses in

relation to genocide. In order to dispel any notion that this paper is selecting on the dependent variable, I

will also be incorporating evidence of the complicity of the masses in other populations in the occurrence

of genocide, whilst noting that Rwanda is the only case of implicit participation by the masses, and

therefore the only proper opportunity to examine this disturbing and interesting phenomena of mass

participation in genocide.

Background:

The history of Tutsi/Hutu relations in Rwanda is complex but integral to our study of the

genocide of 1994, thus a brief summary of the build-up to the genocide is necessary. During colonial

times, racist ideas drove the Belgian colonizers of Rwanda to elevate the minority Tutsi to loftier levels of

influence than in precolonial times, whereby the Tutsi acted as agents of control, and therefore oppressors

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of the majority Hutu, on behalf of their Belgian rulers (Sagall, 2013, p.240). This continued for a number

of decades until the early 1950’s when an increasingly self-aware Hutu population began to push back

against the Tutsi for power and with the impending independence of Rwanda, that was to come in 1959,

the Belgians began to elevate Hutus to increasingly stronger positions (Jean, 2007). Power positions

between the two ethnicities were officially reversed after the 1959-1961 revolution that begot Rwanda's

independence and placed a radical Hutu party in power (Jean, 2007). Increasing marginalization of Tutsis

and occasional instances of mass murder by the now Hutu dominated government following Rwanda's

independence drove hundreds of thousands of Tutsi to flee and seek refuge in nearby Uganda and Tutsi

dominated Burundi (Hintjens, 1999). However on the whole, Rwanda seemed to fare quite well relative to

most african nations from the 1960’s to early 1980s, until falling prices for Tin and Coffee, Rwanda's two

main exports, caused rapidly increasing levels of poverty (Sagall, 2013, p.233) and so began the process

of increasing radicalization of the political situation (Friedman, 2012). This set up the stage for the start of

the civil war in 1990, with the Rwandan Patriotic Front, a Ugandan trained rebel group (Ugandan, 2006)

composed of Rwandan Tutsis who had fled the anti-Tutsi violence in Rwandan during the 1960s-70s

(Marchand, 1995, p.11), invading from the North and making significant headway before being defeated

by combined Rwandan and French forces (Jean, 2007). However this early defeat merely signalled the

beginning rather than the end of the civil war in Rwanda, a civil war that was to culminate in the deaths of

800000 individuals in the period of 100 days, and the eventual overthrow of the Hutu leadership by the

RPF.

The Spark:

Of huge significance to my analysis are the Arusha accords signed in 1993 as well as the one

event that is mostly credited with the start of the genocide, the assassination of President Juvenal

Habyarimana on the 6th of April 1994. The Arusha accords were an attempt by the President to find a

diplomatic situation to the civil war with the RPF, who continued to make significant gains against the

significantly larger Rwandan army. However the Arusha accords were seen by many of the Presidents

inner circle of power, the Akazu, as well as many radical Hutu’s as an entirely unacceptable solution.

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They could not conceive of sharing power with the Tutsi again and feared that if they did (Lemarchand,

1995, p.10), the Tutsi would use any gains in power to bring about again the historical oppression of Hutu

by Tutsi. No one has claimed responsibility for the assassination of the president and thus it is not likely

that we will ever know the truth about that, considering that the Hutu extremists blamed the RPF and used

the assassination as justification to begin massacring Tutsi (Marchand, 1995, p10), whilst the RPF blamed

the Hutu extremists and claimed that they just wanted an excuse to begin the genocide, whomever it may

have been, it was this assassination that set the stage for the murderous 100 days.

Symbolist Political theory:

This theory, popularized by Stewart J Kaufmann is based on the social-psychological view that

mass violence “driven by hostile ethnic myths and an emotionally driven symbolic politics based on those

myths that popularizes predatory policies” (Kauffman, 2006, p.47). In particular Kaufmann emphasizes

the interaction of three dynamics that lead to the occurrence of genocide, mass hostility, chauvinist

political mobilization, and a security dilemma (Kauffman, 2006, p.53). When these dynamics are

combined with certain preconditions such as economic hardship and existing precedents of violence

between ethnicities, then as the argument goes, the stage is set for the occurrence of “Genocide”. In

particular this theory pushes forth the idea of the “Myth-symbol complex”, whereby deep historical roots

are the cause of myths held by the in-group towards the out-group (Jean, 2007). Standing in contrast to

the elite-led predation model that is central to rational choice theory, Symbolist political theory argues

that genocide is a bottom-up approach, whereby chauvinist elites and national leaders undertake genocide

in order to comply with demands from an emotionally-driven population for ethnic cleansing. Symbolist

political theory points to the longstanding, precolonial, tensions between Tutsi and Hutu as an

explanation for the genocide that occurred in 1994 (Kaufmann, 2006, p62). However, an in-depth

investigation and application of rational choice theory to the Rwandan Genocide will demonstrate that

Symbolist political theory fails to account for much of what occurred in Rwanda during those fateful 100

days in the summer of 1994.

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As applied to Rwanda:

In order to fully explain symbolist politics in the Rwandan genocide, it would require an

extensive amount of discussion on the topic, rather I offer a summary of the main applications of the

symbolist political theory as it relates to the Rwandan case. The dynamics described by Kaufmann as

necessary for the occurrence of genocide under symbolist political theory were undoubtedly present in

Rwanda.

The existence of eliminiationist Hutu mythology is un-doubtable, as memories of oppression by

the Tutsi still reigned strong in the minds of Hutu all over Rwanda (Sagall, 2013, p.240). Hutus

increasingly sought to marginalize the Tutsi, excluding them from positions of power within the

government, and ramping up the pressure on moderate Hutus to stay away from marrying Tutsi or

interacting with them in any way (Hintjens, 1999, p.265). The very myths that had drawn the Belgians to

give the Tutsis the reigns of power initially during colonial times, namely the idea that the Tutsis were

from the North of Africa and thus more civilized. Now began to be espoused by radical Hutu as evidence

of the idea that “Tutsi were aliens whose presence was illegitimate” (Kaufmann, 2006, p.53) .

Ethnic fears both real and internally fostered was also very present in daily Rwandan life.

Especially with the RPF invasion of 1990 and the start of the civil war, elites and masses alike pushed

forth the idea that ordinary Tutsis were all allies of the RPF. Thus Tutsis as an entire ethnicity came to be

feared in Rwanda by the Hutus, as memories of colonial and pre-colonial oppression by the Tutsis came

to mind, Hutus began to wonder what would happen should the Tutsi return to power (Kaufmann, 2006,

p.53).

Extreme mass hostilities against Tutsi had also been ongoing since the independence of

Rwanda, meaning that ordinary Hutu were already becoming desensitized to violence against the Tutsi. It

is certainly worth mentioning that the violence and mass murder by the RPF and by Tutsi against Hutu in

neighboring Rwanda only served to fuel these hostilities and fear of the Tutsi amongst the Hutu

(Kaufmann, 2006, p.53).

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Finally and perhaps most importantly, Chauvinist mobilization based on manipulating ethnic

symbols was prevalent in mainstream Rwandan society in the buildup to the genocide. Elites taking

advantage of popular opposition to Tutsis continuously manipulated ethnic symbols to push forth a

violent agenda (Kaufmann, 2006, p.53). Bringing back the term “Inyanza" meaning cockroaches, in order

to manipulate the Hutu masses into viewing the Tutsi more and more as a people to be crushed

(Kaufmann, 2006, p.55). Just as Hutu propaganda was lowering the status of Tutsi within society, it also

attempted to elevate the status of the Hutu, with the popular slogan of the army during the massacres in

1994 being “Hutu Pawa”, or “Hutu Power” (Straus, 2006, p. 62) . One need look no further than the Hutu

ten commandments published in 1990 to see just how polarized the situation in Rwanda had become, with

a particularly disturbing 8th commandment “The Hutu should stop having mercy on the Tutsi” (Hintjens,

1999, p.265)

Rational Choice theory:

Rational choice theory assumes that humans are rational beings (Moise, 2007) meaning that their

actions are guided by specific self-interests and that individuals choose from a number of alternatives the

choice that best serves their personal strategic interests (Anderton, 2009, p.123). Rational choice theory

opposes the notion that individuals will act based on emotion alone in situations such as this, rather where

emotion or ideology is used, it is merely a cover used by the elites to mobilize the masses for their own

political or economic gains (Hintjens, 1999, p.242). Rational choice theory suggests that ethnicity as a

whole is an artificial construct that is maintained and reinforced by elites in order to main their power

base (Jean, 2007). Elites will act to exacerbate ethnic tensions in order to create an in-group vs out-group

mentality and a resultant hatred for the other, and sense of bonding within the in-group (Jean, 2007).

Furthermore as elites begin to see their position as more and more desperate, they will likely resort to

increasingly more extreme measures as well in order to reinforce their power.

However by focusing solely on the rational motivations of the elites, most proponents of rational

choice theory explain that elites deceive the masses into blindly following their ideology and thus

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executing the rational motivations of the elites at little to no benefit for themselves. However in this paper

I shall demonstrate that this is not sufficient in explaining an event like the Rwandan genocide, where

over 200000 civilians partook in the genocide. In order to fully understand the occurrence of the

genocide, I suggest that the rational motivations of the masses from genocide, which are plentiful, must

also be examined. As previously mentioned, rational motivations implies that these individuals had a

choice between two alternatives, and acting as rational self-interested humans they chose the option that

suited their interests best (Anderton, 2009, p123 & Anderton, 2010, pg 465), that option in most cases

was to engage in mass murder.

As applied to Rwanda:

In order to completely present my argument for Rational Choice theory being the

dominant explanation for the Rwandan Genocide I shall divide my argument into two sections:

Elite Rational motivations, and rational motivations of the masses. Each of these will also be

divided into two sub-categories in order to prevent the varying motivations within each group.

Rational motivations of the elites:

Political:

The rational political motivations of the Elites in Rwanda in committing genocide are

obvious, with the RPF steadily gaining ground and approaching the capital Kigali, the Hutu elites

began to fear for their positions (leMarchand, 1995). Thus by ordering the massacre of Tutsis

and inciting ethnic hatred at such a large scale, the elites hoped that they would be able to

consolidate their power and prevent a return to Tutsi rule over Rwanda (Hintjens, 1999, p.249).

With Habyarimana, who seemed willing to concede some powers to the RPF out of the way, the

new extremist leaders of Rwanda emphasized security issues to their followers (Kaufmann,

2006, p.46), in order to instil the idea in their minds that they were their only saviours and thus

reinforce their power base within Rwanda, especially emphasizing in-group solidarity against the

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attacking out-group (Jean, 2007). Furthermore they hoped that if they truly managed to eliminate

all the Tutsis within Rwanda, then this would aid them in defeating the RPF, as the allies of the

RPF inside Hutu-dominated Rwanda would be removed, without considering that it might

actually have the opposite effect.

Economic:

In terms of the economic motivations of the elites for conducting genocide there are two

things to consider, firstly elites living in luxurious mansions wanted to continue this lifestyle

(Hintjens, 1999 & Jean, 2007), and secondly elites were aware that with the dire economic

situation in Rwanda they could not continue to hold onto power. Prior to his assassination,

Habyarimana had already begun facing stiff opposition from Southern and Eastern elites over the

lack of equality in the distribution of wealth (Jean, 2007), not to mention that the population was

suffering immensely as a result of the economically weak 1980’s. Thus by eliminating the Tutsi

the Rwandan elites were taking a page out of the Nazi cookbook, hoping to use the holocaust as

efficiently from an economic standpoint as the Nazi’s had done. Namely, use the resources

forcibly extracted/looted from those massacred in order to continue financing the elites lavish

lifestyles, fund the war efforts against foreign forces and appease the masses (Aly, 2005, p.7 &

p.282 & chapter 11).

Rational motivations of the masses:

The Rwandan genocide is disturbingly unique in that it is the only incident that is agreed

upon universally as an example of genocide where the civilian population engaged readily and

heavily in the genocide. This however has largely been ignored in the literature on the topic, with

most of the literature from social-psychological perspectives focusing on the myths and ethnic

symbols in the population, and rational perspectives focusing on deceptions by the elites and

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information failures. I consider this however to be a distinct weakness in the literature however,

considering that in order to fully understand genocide and hopefully prevent it in the future. We

must have a proper understanding of why it is that civilians who otherwise co-mingled and lived

relatively peacefully with Tutsis would suddenly resort to engaging in organized murder against

them (Jean, 2007, p4).

Self-Preservation:

I believe that this explanation is especially critical in explaining why the masses so

actively participated in the Genocide. Although most scholars would argue that the participation

of the masses whilst motivated by self-preservation was irrational because they were being

deceived by the elites (Kaufman, 2006, p.46). I find this argument weak as it is clear that with

the oncoming invasion of the RPF, the Hutu population faced a very real threat of extermination.

By looking at the massacres committed by the RPF against the Hutu, both before and after the

genocide, it is clear that the RPF presented a very real threat to every day Hutus, not to mention

the massacres of Hutu by Tutsi in Burundi. Thus their decision to engage in genocide in order to

protect themselves from the alleged Tutsi allies of the RPF, misguided as it was, was a rational

motivation in that they chose between a number of alternatives and followed the path that served

their interests best (Anderton, 2009, p.123). In addition to this, even those amongst the Hutu who

did not subscribe to the view that the Tutsis provided an “existential threat” to them (Anderton,

2009, p.481), still knew that other Hutus did, and thus by choosing to engage in the genocide,

they were saving their own lives (Anderton, 2009, p.482), the most self-interested and thus

rational of all decisions.

Economic:

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With the economic situation as dire as it was in the 1980s and 1990s, many Hutu chose to

engage in this genocide for personal economic reasons. As stated in the USAID report on the

Rwandan genocide, much of the killing and reporting of Tutsis by civilian Hutu neighbours

occurred as a result of disputes over farm land (Sagall, 2013, p.237). Not to mention the fact that

the amount of food available in Rwanda was severely lessened by Tutsi invasions of fertile farm

land (Sagall, 2013, p.237), so by engaging in a genocide that the Tutsi’s genuinely believed

would rid them of the RPF invasion, the Hutu hoped to alleviate their own economic woes (Cain,

2004, p.67). The Hutu knew that joining the genocidaires would benefit them economically by

allowing them access to the possessions and land of murdered Tutsi and this was a major factor

in convincing Hutu moderates to join in the genocides (Cain, 2004, p.67). Not to mention the fact

that any Hutu who refused to partake in the genocide, if not killed, would at best face a huge

fine, thus many Hutu chose to join in the genocide rather than pay this fine or risk being killed

(Hintjens, 1999). Therefore when looking at it from an economic perspective it is readily

apparent that engaging in genocide against the Tutsis fits in with rational choice theory, it was in

their self-interest to do so.

Was it really rational?

“Elites planned it. They used the state to implement their plan. They drew on a specific

nationalist ideology. And the violence was a systematic campaign to destroy a named population

group. The violence was not just tribalism run amok. It was genocide.” (Straus, 2006, p.3)

One major element that seems entirely unacknowledged by proponents of symbolist-

political theory, is the amount of planning and preparation that went into the Rwandan genocide

(Herman, 2010, p.50& Lemarchand, 1995, p.10). This was not an impromptu decision fuelled by

years of hatred, this was a carefully conceived plan by Hutu extremists within the government to

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eradicate the “"Inyanza"” from their lands for their personal gains (Hintjens, 1999 & Marchand,

1995). Another element that is critical but hotly disputed, is the matter of the President

Habyarimana’s assassination, considering that it sparked off the genocide. Although difficult and

perhaps impossible to confirm, it is fairly logical to why Habyarimana might have been

assassinated by extremist elements of the Akazu in a plan to both provide justification for their

attack (Marchand, 1995, 10), also to eliminate a man that seemed to be failing both under

pressure South/Eastern Hutu elites as well as the military might of the RPF (Jean, 2007).

Symbolist Political theory fails to account for the long process of planning that began years

before the genocide (Hintjens, 1999), it cannot account for the occurrence of the genocide when

it did. And, neither does it account for the fact that so many moderate Hutus could be swayed to

suddenly engage in this genocide, if they had supposedly always harbored these ancient myths

and ethnic hatred within them. Something that my personal addition to rational choice theory

manages perfectly encapsulates, and explains, the rational participation of the masses in

genocide.

Conclusion:

The fact that many of the motivations of these actors mentioned in this failed,

economically (Lopez, 2012 & Serneels, 2010) as well as politically (Hintjens, 1999) to

materialize does not mean that these individuals acted irrationally. Rather they acted extremely

rationally, in the sense that they chose the alternative that seemed to make the most sense from

the perspective of self-interest, bounded as they were by a lack of a crystal ball to foretell the

future of their actions. It is easy to claim that this genocide occurred as a result of deeply

ingrained ethnic conflicts and chauvinistic elites who acted based on emotion and ideology,

because this allows us to deflect difficult questions about the nature of humans. Rather we should

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consider the fact that both elites and the masses, faced some very real choices, in terms of

economic, political and self-preservation decisions, and the majority of them made the self-

interested choice as predicted by rational choice theory. A choice that any completely self-

interested human would likely make again and again in the future, an issue that we must address

on not only a practical level, by attempting to remove the economic/political preconditions of

genocide, but also on a philosophical level, to see what it really means to be rational. Gotz Aly

(2005) said that “the holocaust will never be properly understood until it is seen as the most

single-mindedly pursued campaign of murderous larceny in modern history”, whilst adding the

caveat that there are specific political motivations as well, I would completely agree with his

views and extend them to cover the Rwandan genocide. In addition although outside the

boundaries of this current paper, future research to unravel the specific economic motivations

that drive beings into a place where rational choice forces us to mass murder. This paper has

conclusively and unfortunately shown, that genocide is not the work of sadists, but is a result of

calculated decisions by rational individuals, aiming to maximize their own utility (Anderton,

2010, p465).

The case of the Rwandan farmer in 1994:

And thus… with the morbid conclusions of this article we return to Gregoire and his difficult

decisions. Were he a smarter man, or a properly rational self-interested human, the decision would be

made. Gregoire would, and likely should, pick up his machete, end the lives of his wives cousin and her

daughters so as to spare them a more terrible fate, and then head on over to join the rest of the killings.

But, due perhaps to that inherent strength to resist, that Milgram found in only 3% of the human

population (Milgram, 1963), Gregoire has reached the limits of rationality. What he will do is not the

optimum self-interested decision, not by a long-shot, rather he will continue to nobly protect his Tutsi

relatives and his own conscience. Max Weber would likely praise him, but for his efforts he, and his

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whole family, will likely join 40000 other Hutu individuals who chose to do the right thing rather than the

rational thing, and paid the ultimate price for it.

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