Graduation Year
2021
Date of Submission
5-2021
Document Type
Campus Only Senior Thesis
Award
Keck Center Best Senior Thesis - U.S. Foreign Policy
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
International Relations
Reader 1
Professor Wendy Lower, Ph.D.
Terms of Use & License Information
Abstract
With a focus on U.S. foreign policy and the executive branch, this thesis explores whether the perceived failures that marked the U.S. government’s responses to cases of genocide and mass atrocities in the 20th century have continued in the 21st century. The recent and ongoing cases analyzed include the Darfur, Yazidi, and Rohingya atrocities as responded to by Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. The comparison across administrations and centuries shows that infrastructural advancement of mass atrocity prevention has not translated to a proportional advancement in the U.S. government's response. As such, I argue that the U.S. government’s response to genocide, the crime of all crimes, remains inadequate due to issues of disconnect, incongruity of interests, and lack of transparency. The U.S. government, the American public, and civil society must elevate the importance of mass atrocity policy in our social, political, and cultural discourse to counteract these trends.
Recommended Citation
Donine, Tallan, "U.S. Government Responses to Genocide: A Comparison of the 20th and 21st Centuries" (2021). CMC Senior Theses. 2640.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/2640
This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.
