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Judge Thy Neighbor : Denunciations in the Spanish Inquisition, Romanov Russia, and Nazi Germany / Patrick Bergemann.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: The Middle Range SeriesPublisher: New York, NY : Columbia University Press, [2019]Copyright date: ©2019Description: 1 online resource : 4 mapsContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780231180160
  • 9780231542388
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 363.25/2 23
LOC classification:
  • KJC9520 .B47 2019
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Acknowledgments -- 1. A Theory of Denunciation -- 2. The Spanish Inquisition -- 3. Romanov Russia -- 4. Nazi Germany -- 5. Denunciations: Present and Future -- Notes -- References -- Index
Summary: From the Spanish Inquisition to Nazi Germany to the United States today, ordinary people have often chosen to turn in their neighbors to the authorities. What motivates citizens to inform on the people next door? In Judge Thy Neighbor, Patrick Bergemann provides a theoretical framework for understanding the motives for denunciations in terms of institutional structures and incentives.In case studies of societies in which denunciations were widespread, Bergemann merges historical and quantitative analysis to explore individual participation in social control. He sheds light on Jewish converts' shifting motives during the Spanish Inquisition; when and why seventeenth-century Romanov subjects fulfilled their obligation to report insults to the tsar's honor; and the widespread petty and false complaints filed by German citizens under the Third Reich, as well as present-day plea bargains, whistleblowing, and crime reporting. Bergemann finds that when authorities use coercion or positive incentives to elicit information, individuals denounce out of self-preservation or to gain rewards. However, in the absence of these incentives, denunciations are often motivated by personal resentments and grudges. In both cases denunciations facilitate social control not because of citizen loyalty or shared ideology but through the local interests of ordinary participants. Offering an empirically and theoretically rich account of the dynamics of denunciation as well as vivid descriptions of the denounced, Judge Thy Neighbor is a timely and compelling analysis of the reasons people turn in their acquaintances, with relevance beyond conventionally repressive regimes.

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Acknowledgments -- 1. A Theory of Denunciation -- 2. The Spanish Inquisition -- 3. Romanov Russia -- 4. Nazi Germany -- 5. Denunciations: Present and Future -- Notes -- References -- Index

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From the Spanish Inquisition to Nazi Germany to the United States today, ordinary people have often chosen to turn in their neighbors to the authorities. What motivates citizens to inform on the people next door? In Judge Thy Neighbor, Patrick Bergemann provides a theoretical framework for understanding the motives for denunciations in terms of institutional structures and incentives.In case studies of societies in which denunciations were widespread, Bergemann merges historical and quantitative analysis to explore individual participation in social control. He sheds light on Jewish converts' shifting motives during the Spanish Inquisition; when and why seventeenth-century Romanov subjects fulfilled their obligation to report insults to the tsar's honor; and the widespread petty and false complaints filed by German citizens under the Third Reich, as well as present-day plea bargains, whistleblowing, and crime reporting. Bergemann finds that when authorities use coercion or positive incentives to elicit information, individuals denounce out of self-preservation or to gain rewards. However, in the absence of these incentives, denunciations are often motivated by personal resentments and grudges. In both cases denunciations facilitate social control not because of citizen loyalty or shared ideology but through the local interests of ordinary participants. Offering an empirically and theoretically rich account of the dynamics of denunciation as well as vivid descriptions of the denounced, Judge Thy Neighbor is a timely and compelling analysis of the reasons people turn in their acquaintances, with relevance beyond conventionally repressive regimes.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 02. Mrz 2022)