The Year..:  2014 is the year of ENDKILL.  A 365 day journey into my research archive and active agenda, reflecting on what we know and do not know about mass atrocities and how to stop them (delivered once weekly so as not to burden the viewer/reader/audience).  (Sent via proxy while traveling)

With renewed discussion of Human Security Report and Jay Ulfelder's reflection about the possibility of declining violence, I wished to step back or to the side for a second.  At present, much of the discussion about trends in violence is problematic.  

First, much of the discussion seems to be based on war - both the interstate and civil varieties. These are of course historically important but they are not the only games in town. Indeed, by some accounts, these have been side shows to the arguably more lethal state sponsored mass killings like the destruction of native americans in the us, jews and others during the holocaust or mass purges of the Stalinist and Maoist regimes. Steven Pinker also talks about homicide but essentially he seems to be talking about what takes place in Europe.  What of the rest of the world?  Detroit and the Democratic Republic of Congo are not trending downward anytime soon.

Second, the current discussion seems to conflate perpetrators in an unsettling way. Homicide is undertaken by ordinary citizens; terrorism, insurgency and revolution by behavioral challengers; and genocide and most human rights violations by governments. These all take the same types of cues and respond to means, motive as well as opportunity in the same ways?  Ummmmmmmm.  

Third, there seems to be little discussion about the substantive meaning of the trend. A lower or declining number is believed to be better but I would like to reflect on this for a few minutes.  

If political authorities no longer kill those under their jurisdiction because they have subdued, beaten, "pacified" the relevant populations (e.g., removed challenging ideas to those in power and those associated with them), does this mean that things have actually gotten better? I can see the logic of saying yes as there are fewer dead bodies but I can also see this as limiting as it does not prompt us to assess the quality of life for the bodies that are left walking around. 

Before I am accused of saying that some people are better off dead, let me clarify.  Within the trendology discussion there appears to be little discussion regarding what the live bodies do/think/feel that are left on the earth.  If we were found to live in a world where we were less likely to be killed but we were all only thinking one idea (insert random idea here), is this a world that we would like to be in?  I think the question merits consideration. 

Accordingly, I would like to see and will participate in a more detailed conversation about the causal mechanisms driving the trends under discussion.  We may be in a "long peace" but if "peace" is only conceived of as non-violence, then I would suggest that that peace is an empty one.  I do not wish to only live in a world that is only less violent (a conclusion that I am not willing to completely accept yet). I also wish to live in a world that is more diverse in terms of ideas regarding how we should/could/ought to live. I wish to live in a world where the different people of the world are respected for the beliefs that they have held throughout time not the ones they are wiling to adopt as they move forward.  I wish to live in a world that is more equitable, which is something that rarely enters into these discussions about trends. Finally, I wish to feel more not less connected to those around me (insert crack about social media and video games here).  In short, I wish to have a deeper conception of life beyond violence/non-violence.  All I am saying is "give peace a chance".

The Year..:  2014 is the year of ENDKILL.  A 365 day journey into my research archive and active agenda, reflecting on what we know and do not know about mass atrocities and how to stop them (delivered once weekly so as not to burden the viewer/reader/audience).


Years ago (when I was working on some unpublished research with David Armstrong and Mark Lichbach) I had this idea that our understanding of civil war (marked by the dashed lines above) had limited our conception of contentious politics.  The concept seemed to suck all of the air out of the subject - getting us to think about only one form of violence, forgetting the forest for the trees as it were.  We then brought together all forms of contentious politics that we could get our hands on and began to then work through all civil wars to see what each of the cases looked like.  Nicaragua is below.

As I reflect on the circumstances under which mass atrocities are ended, I am guided to think that the subject should not be separated from the broader phenomenon of political violence, writ large.  If diverse forms of conflict (studied individually) actually "move" together (i.e., are driven by similar forces), then we are missing something by isolating them from one another.  Note how in the Nicaraguan case the different "forms" of political violence first rise (in 1978) and then fall (1979+) together.  Also note how the dip in repression precedes the whole escalatory pattern?  We would generally miss this if we followed the existing practice in the literature where strikes, guerrilla war, riots, revolution, civil war, civil liberties restriction and personal integrity violations would be separated from one another.  

Current political science associations do not help.  The Conflict Processes section of APSA and their associated journal has largely been concerned with first interstate war and then civil war. The human rights violation people kind of have their own section and journal but the area has had a mixed reception for those who use data (no book awards yet for those adopting this methodology) and thus they are not always good at getting their work placed there. Quantitatively oriented human rights scholars thus try Conflict Processes or Peace Science.  I always wondered where the people go in political science that are interested in protest or, worse yet, protest policing.  This has not been something Conflict Processes has focused on nor Peace Science - although this has been changing as of late.  If the protest/policing was connected with democratization, then folks could find a home.  Or, if it involved some methodological innovation, then the individual could go to Political Methodology, but in doing so they kind of lose their broader audience who would not look there and might not have the time to search all relevant key words.  God forbid the researcher use an American case because that would lead the Comparativists and International Relations/World scholars in the opposite direction. And, don't even think about doing an African American case and try to convince someone that it is relevant for other places, other times.  I remember presenting something about US protest/protest policing at ISA one year and having someone ask me why I presented my peace at the meeting.  I simply responded: "American contention does not have relevance for the rest of the world?  We arm, train and act about as much as anyone when it comes to contentious political behavior, so why would I not do this?"  

As students and scholars go about their business of researching, writing and reading, we might guide folks away from the artificially created, reified and institutionally sustained areas of civil war, genocide, terrorism, human rights violation and political dissent and move them towards the broader phenomenon of political violence and a version of contentious politics where state behavior is more fully integrated.  If we are to keep the areas siloed, we might at least try to consult the Annual Review of Political Science to get some sense of what innovations, insights in the respective areas might hold for the particular form of political violence we are interested in.  The key to ending mass atrocities might just be found in some piece regarding ending gang violence or police harassment.  

Combing through my archives of Black Panther material I came across the image above from the artist Emory Douglas.  I imagine that they had very specific ideas about the level of violence and respect for human rights across the categories of law enforcement.  These are likely shared by others around the world.  I wonder what animals fit into the last category in Egypt and Tunisia.