Beneath its apparent senselessness genocide is a somewhat rational attempt to achieve specific goals and any study of this phenomenon reveals a perverted logic behind the killing that lies at the heart of the genocidal impulse. Genocides happen because a state decides that a population must be eliminated and then takes steps to remove that group. Many examples of genocide concern the attempted destruction of a population because of a specific system of belief or beliefs. These ideological genocides occur because members of a society, especially those in political power, hold true to ideas that encourage them to attempt to eliminate a population. Even for genocides that are neither exclusively nor predominantly ideological, belief systems supporting persecution are still utilized to provide motivation and justification for the violence
against the victim group.

The Relationship between Ideology and Genocide: We must understand that ideologies are a necessary part of any genocide because they provide the necessary intellectual framework that motivates and justifies the persecution of the victim group. These beliefs may include a variety of nationalistic, historical, scientific, and religious precepts that validate the violence. The Nazis, for example, held a number of scientific and medical beliefs about the supposed racial superiority of the Aryan people. In their world view, the Jews and the Slavic peoples were a threat to the genetic purity of the Aryan race and when combined with historic and religious anti-Semitism these ideas provided much of the rationale for the industrialized killing of the Holocaust. Similarly, the genocide in Cambodia relied upon a number of ideological imperatives that included certain communist principles united with ethnic Khmer nationalism and these provided the rationale for the Khmer Rouge to attempt to return Cambodia to a historic and mythic time of greatness by killing anyone who was perceived as a foreign and corrupting influence.

Nationalism and Genocide: Of all the ideologies supporting genocide, none is perhaps as pervasive as that of Nationalism. Nationalism refers to the perception that a group of people are united because they share certain qualities that tie them together as a national community and which sets them apart from people outside of the national body. Unfortunately, these ideas are often taken to indicate that one’s own group is not only different, but superior as well. Genocide targets minority groups defined as being different, dangerous, and even less than human. This nationalistic xenophobia is often compounded by a sense of historic suffering and victimization that may serve to justify aggressive action. Bosnian Serb propaganda constantly played upon the theme of Serb victimization at the hands of the Ottoman Turks in 1389 and by the Croats during World War II which helped legitimate the violence against the Bosnian Moslems and Croats. Serb controlled media outlets also suggested that the Bosnian Moslems were planning on attacking and enslaving the Bosnian Serbs. These arguments also provided a rationale for the killers to accept their actions as necessary and justified. This process is necessary since the evidence indicates that most of the individuals who participate in genocide are normal people who believe in the necessity of their actions. Perpetrators of genocide are usually members of a society who have accepted a world view that portrays their participation as an act of self-defense and protection.

Recommendations:
While there are many possible strategies for preventing genocide and while any effective system of intervention and prevention must include multiple initiatives, the following recommendations most specifically address the problem of genocidal ideologies.

- In the long term, societies must be socialized away from the often xenophobic and always divisive fervor of nationalism. Nationalistic value systems and attitudes must be replaced with a more international and human rights based ethos that emphasizes tolerance and the commonality of human beings rather than their differences. Nationalism often exalts the “narcissism of minor difference” and these ethnocentric ideals must be replaced with ones that are more humanistic in orientation.

- Resocialization must be accompanied in the short term with aggressive enforcement of international human rights law through bodies such as the International Criminal Court. This is important not only for the sake of justice, but because the apprehension, prosecution, and punishment of perpetrators of genocide will also serve to help change international and national values and attitudes around genocide. We must remember that legal changes often precede and influence attitudinal changes.

- Nationalism also often depends upon many myths, fallacies, and prejudices. Genocide prevention techniques, therefore, must also include initiatives intended to educate populations about the uses and misuses of national identity and history, thus making them more resistant to the blandishments of nationalistic demagogues. - State propaganda must be countered with independent news and media outlets. Genocide depends upon the active participation of the few and the passive acquiescence of the many. The fewer the number of people who have accepted the official discourse around persecution the less ability that government has to enact official and unofficial policies toward genocide.