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.  

Going through a Norwegian airport recently after going through security I was shocked to see the panel to the left.  It was an evaluation of TSA.  Now, I was on the way to America and thus I went through the Norwegian security system, which was as per my Scandinavian experience, fabulous.  There you keep your shoes on, there is a kind request before any procedures and there seems to be no one with a weapon anywhere to be found. Actually, I must say that I barely remember that government's have coercive agents and engage in repression when I am over there.

As I walked up to the panel, I was kind of stuck thinking about what the really, really green (evidently happy experience would be like).  

Happy green: TSA was efficient, I moved through the line quickly, no one asked me remove my sweater (thinking it was a jacket), there was no "random" search, there was no overly-diligent pat down of my private parts, there is no extra conversation when I mention that I am a Professor of political science, I see at least 3 different weapons, there are enough plastic thingies to stick my items in, my bag is only sent through the machine twice, the bag gets opened and the items inside get shuffled around in some messy fashion (preventing me from putting everything back in there as I had worked out the day before) and I wait for about 10 minutes for someone to come for an extra security check. 

Mild green: TSA was efficient, I am only moderately tempted to suggest that there probably could be another person moved from one section to another so that the line could move quicker, I see only one weapon, I get touched lightly by two different people, my bag gets opened and items get shuffled but I can still close the bag, I wait for the person to bring more plastic thingies to stick my items in, the electronic boarding pass apparatus is at one agent but not the others, there is one agent for the elite/snooty class that does not call people over.

Mild red: I receive bizarre attention for some fashion choice (e.g., jacket, shoes, socks), my bag goes through the machine three times, someone tries to use some pop-psychology tactic in order to engage me in conversation without accepting that variation on the answer does not signal a problem, my being a Professor means they wish to ask some question about what I study, the lines are long and slow, I see a bunch of weapons, there are few plastic thingies for my stuff or the person bringing them is moving glacially slow.  

Horrified red: Everyone seems to have an attitude, there are weapons seemingly everywhere, there are no plastic thingies for my stuff, all the snooty-people lanes are not busy and no one is being called over, I am patted down at every opportunity, everyone seems to have some grudge against political science or higher education as a profession, I am asked to take off different articles of clothing by the same person over the course of several interactions, I miss my flight because the person looking at the x-ray machine is waiting for assistance from at least two different people.

Imagine if you could push a single button to provide your opinion right after walking through security?  I anticipate that the results would be different than surveys on the topic.

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).  

Convinced that there was something of merit within existing databases concerned with large-scale state atrocity, I decided to try and evaluate what the different sources identified as the relevant cases.  For this, I paired up with Ragnhild Nordas, beginning an effort we called "Bloodbath & Beyond".

The idea here was that there could really be no rigorous analysis of the topic if there was no list.  This is afterall how the Correlates of War, UCDP, Nicholas Sambanis and James Fearon/David Laitin's projects got started.

Perusing journals we settled on 8 different sources that had been employed: Rudy Rummel, The Political Terror Scale (at 3 or above), the Political Instability Task Force - Genocide/Politicide listing, Jennifer Balint, Ben Valentino/Paul Huth, the UCDP One-sided violence data, Genocide Watch's list as well as some research by William Easterly.  We identified all cases within each database and then attempted to figure out if the same cases were covered.  The basic logic here was straightforward: if the different sources were covering the same topic in some manner, then there should be some overlap.  If the sources were not covering the same topic, then there should be very little overlap.  This is in the general direction of a cross-validation exercise.

Note: below we generally mention the cases where the perpetrator as well as victim were identified.  If there are multiple years lists with a / this is because the date is contested across the source material provided.  

What did we find? Well, before you look write down on a piece of paper what mass state-oriented killings existed between 1900-2010.

Essentially, we found that most cases only had one source associated with them (total 650 out of 897).  A great many of these could be attributed to the fact that before 1950 there are only 5 sources out of all sources that were around but this is still a decent amount.

Numerous cases had two sources, providing some degree of corroboration (171 out of 897): the Canudus massacre in Brazil 1886-1897, the colonial massacres of the Herrero in South Africa 1900-1918, the Red and White terrors in Hungary 1919, the Transylvania conflict between 1919 and a variety of dates, the massacre of Jewish Refugees in Jordan 1920-1921/1929/1946, Turkey 1924-1927 against the Kurds, Germany from 1933-1945 against the Jews, Poles, Disabled, homosexuals, communists and Jehovah's Witnesses, the Dominican Republic against Dominco-Haitians in 1937, Former USSR against Meskhetians and Crimea Tartars from 1944-1968 as well as against Estonians in 1949, the Cultural Revolution in China from 1966-1975, Cambodia from 1968-1975, El Salvador 1979-1991, Nicaragua against the Miskito from 1981-1992, Yugoslavia against muslims as well as Croats between 1991-1995 and Thailand in 2003.  

Fewer cases had three sources (38 out of 897). Croatia agains the Serbs, Jews, Gypsies between 1941-1945, Burma 1948-1962/87, Israel against the Palestinians between 1948-1955/1956/1967/1973, Sudan against Southern nationalists 1952-1972, Guinea-Bissau 1958-1984, Iraq against the Kurds 1961-1975, Rwanda against Tutsi ruling class 1962-1964 as well as 1990-1994, Nigeria between 1967-1970, India against the Naxalites 1968-1982, Cambodia 1970-1975, Philippines 1972-1976, Chile against Leftists 1976-1983, El Salvador against Leftists 1980-1989, Uganda 1980-1986, Iran against Kurds 1981-1992, India against the Sikhs 1984, Burundi 1988, Indonesia against the Auyu 1989-1992, Croatia 1993-1995 against Muslims/Serbs and Sudan 2003-present.  

Even fewer cases had four sources (24 out of 897): China against the Kuomintang between 1949-1956, Indonesia against the communist/chinese between 1965-1967, Uganda against the Karamojong, Acholi, Lango, Catholic clergy and political opposition between 1971-1979, Ethiopia between 1974-1991, Indonesia 1975-1992, Argentina 1976-1980, Cambodia 1979, Iran against the bahai 1979-1984, Somalia 1988-1991, Kenya 1991-1994 and Rwanda 1994.

A handful had five (9 out of 897): Colombia 1948-1962, Angola/Portugal 1961-1962, Nigeria against the Igbo 1966-1970, Pakistan against Bengali nationalists 1971, Chile 1973-1976, Angola 1975-1994, Cambodia 1975-1979, Syria 1981-1982, Sudan 1983-1999/2002, 

Three cases had six sources.  None had more than this.  Burundi 1972-1973, Afghanistan 1978-1992 and Bosnia 1992-1995.

So, what did/do we take away from this?  Well, several things:

1) it is useful to create a list so that we can begin to discuss the cases as a community (please send me emails regarding your opinions about what should/should not be there as well as any sources you have regarding perpetrators, victims, onsets and terminations).  This is something that I assumed the Political Instability Task Force or the Atrocity Prevention Board would do but whatever.  Why wait for them.  Let's get started.

2) The list provides a nice starting point. We have begun evaluating the cases (one at a time) to find whatever source material exists on who did what to whom as well as how confident we are about this information.  Whatever one's opinion about Rudy Rummel's work in the Statistics of Democide, he did provide source material and one could (as we are beginning to do) go back and start to evaluate its quality. 

3) 897 isn't a large number (compared to something like GDELT for example) but it ain't small either - especially with each case shrouded in violence, fear, smoke and often ev.  If you want to help, let us know.

4) What do six sources converging actually mean?  Dangzer back in the 1970s discovered that newspapers were likely to cover riots if there was a specific news organization present.  We need to differentiate between our sources, getting down to where they got their information from to first gauge independence and then to gauge why the information was covered/provided.  We are now trying to ascertain how each of the sources collected information and coded it.  Not an easy task.  Some are clearer than others.  

5) The list does not completely fit our expectations regarding what we thought would be covered by the most sources but we were not off by that much.  For example, there were no cases with three or more cases that we never heard of.  

Note: For good overview of the field see Daniel Solomon's great review.

I've been studying state repression/human rights violation for approximately 2 decades now and realized a few years ago that the field has mostly been concerned with understanding why different tactics are used (e.g., torture, negative sanctions, arrests and targeted assassination) as well as how bad things can get (e.g., how many people are killed). What has received much less attention is what stops state repressive action - seeing no tactics and no politically-related deaths at all after some has occurred. We have plenty on what reduces severity (e.g., political democracy, reduced political conflict/dissent/behavioral challenge, naming/shaming) and even some attention to some of the factors that we think might be related to termination such as intervention and sanctions (Kathman and Wood, Krain as well as more recently Hultman et al.), but there is very little on what terminates state-sponsored, mass killing (which I will maintain along with others is still the worst of the worst in terms of how people are killed - nobody kills quite like governments in terms of volume). 

So, with this awareness, about five years ago I started working on the topic. This happened quite by accident.  In @, I won an award to be a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation and the project that I intended on engaging in concerning contention in America fell apart as some of the people working with me at the time had to withdraw. In this space, I then asked an interesting question: what was worth researching?  After a few weeks (looking through old notes, reading a few books that I had put off and walking through Central Park), I came up with stopping mass violence.  What could be done to stop state-sponsored mass killing after it was underway? This was one of the big concerns after the Holocaust and the "Never Again" campaign.  

Topic in hand, I then set out to read what had been written and quickly realized that despite a wealth of historical material on individual cases, we were not really clear on what worked in large part because the question had not been asked or examined explicitly.  Indeed, at that time mostly every one that studied the termination of conflict and violence was focused on civil war as if that was the only game in town.  I had been aided in my thinking by a new project by Alex DeWaal at the SSRC on "How Genocides End".  This webpage presented some insights into what might be involved but they did not engage in any rigorous assessments of what worked.  They did call for some attention to this topic.  Shortly after this I found work by Erik Melander on preventing mass killings before they get started and drawing upon some earlier collaborative work then Courtenay Conrad and Will Moore, came out with a piece on ending torture.

What did I do?  Well, initially I tried to find out what data existed.  There were a few databases around: e.g., Rudy Rummel's list of "democides" (i.e., genocides and politicides) put together.  I had never seen anyone use the source however until Easterly and it was not quite clear how the source material was used to put together the database.  There was Barbara Harff and Ted Gurr's list of genocides and politicides which got taken over by the State Failure /Political Instability Task Force (SF/PITF). While this had been used by more scholars than Rummel's data, I again had some questions. For example, it was not clear what source material was used (differing from Rummel's extensive listing) to build the database. Questions aside, I decided to use the Harff/Gurr/SF/PITF data. 

I began with what I thought was a simple exercise but one that took more time than I wanted. After hiring a student, finding a source to code all information from (Keesings Contemporary Archive) which was available for all countries from 1950 to the present), working out the coding protocol, coding the material and then recoding when we did not believe the results, we attempted to ascertain how each of the cases in the identified Harff/Gurr/SF/PITF data ended.  

Thinking about the subject of termination was pretty interesting because it is clear that these events could end in a wide variety of ways:

The codes:
1) the relevant government (the perpetrators) succeeds in killing off all those targeted
2) the government succeeds in killing off enough of those targeted
3) those targeted leave, eliminating the capacity of the government to continue
4) those targeted receive some type of cover/protection, eliminating the capacity of the government to continue
5) the government cannot continue because of a change in will, resources and/or both
6) the government is blocked by intervention and cannot continue
7) the government changes its strategy of engagement with the targeted community away from violence to something else
8) the government stops because of increased scrutiny/criticism
9) the government stops because of threatened/imposed sanctions
10) The government is forced out of power

The variation is important because discussions of interventions really compel us to think about #6, 8 and 9 but the others are just as possible.  Several of them are pretty grim such as #1 and 2 whereas others are kind of sneaky such as #7. It is crucial to differentiate between the strategies however because if we only examine one without considering the others, then we could improperly understand what is taking place.  The results from this analysis are provided below.

What do I find?  Well, according to our coding of Keesings, most genocides and politicides end because governments are forced out of power (e.g., South Vietnam, Uganda, Somalia, Rwanda, Equatorial Guinea, Congo, Cambodia and Afghanistan) or the government changed tactics (e.g., Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Guatemala, Iraq, Nigeria, the Philippines and Sudan).  Governments were deemed blocked in Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Angola and Pakistan, stopped by criticism in Chile, El Salvador and Indonesia as well as hindered because of threatened/imposed sanctions in Angola. Some of the cases could not be coded at all as there was nothing in Keesings concerning why termination occurred: Myanmar and three instances in Burundi. In other words, according to this source, there are a number of different ways that genocide and politicide end and only some of them concern things that are done by the international community.

So, I looked at these results and then looked some more. I never quite figured out what to do with these results.  I ended more confused about the topic than at the beginning.  It was useful to begin my analyses here though.  At least that is my conclusion now.  I was happy to begin my inquiry into ending state sponsored political violence. This is especially the case when I keep seeing publication after publication coming out on other, somewhat lesser forms of violent action.    

As Camus once commented "All I ask is that, in the middle of a murderous world, we agree to reflect on murder and to make a choice" 

We this last statement in mind, I announce that this is the first installation of a project i am now calling ENDKILL.  Each week I will be moving forward my discussion of how to end state sponsored mass killing.  Let's see where a year of sustained effort can take us.