Scott Straus

How many perpetrators were there in the Rwandan genocide? An estimate

How many Rwandans participated in the 1994 genocide? Existing estimates are hugely discrepant and often not supported with evidence. Some Rwandan government officials claim there were three million perpetrators. Other observers claim there were “hundreds of thousands” (Des Forges, 1999, p 2; Mamdani, 2001, p 7; Scherrer, 2002, p 126; Waller, 2002, p 67). Still others estimate tens of thousands (Jones, 2001, p 41). The high-end estimate effectively criminalizes the entire adult Hutu population at the time of the genocide. The low-end estimate is equivalent to a small fraction of the adult male Hutu population. Which is right? Resolving the question is important not only for understanding the genocide’s specifics. A reliable estimate of the number of perpetrators also has implications for the post-genocide environment in Rwanda. Is the current government facing a “criminal population,” as some claim, or something far less than that? Calculating the exact number of perpetrators is probably impossible given the evidence that is currently available, but a better estimate than currently exists is possible and important. This article’s principal aim is to do that—to provide an estimate that is both empirically based and systematically calculated.

What Is the Relationship between Hate Radio and Violence? Rethinking Rwanda's “Radio Machete”

The importance of hate radio pervades commentary on the Rwandan genocide, and Rwanda has become a paradigmatic case of media sparking extreme violence. However, there exists little social scientific analysis of radios impact on the onset of genocide and the mobilization of genocide participants. Through an analysis of exposure, timing, and content as well as interviews with perpetrators, the article refutes the conventional wisdom that broadcasts from the notorious radio station RTLM were a primary determinant of genocide. Instead, the article finds evidence of conditional media e fects, which take on significance only when situated in a broader context of violence.

Retreating from the Brink: Theorizing Mass Violence and the Dynamics of Restraint

The research problem driving this paper is the absence of a strong theory that accounts for variation among cases that have similar probabilities of escalating to genocide and similar forms of organized (usually state-led) mass violence against civilians. Much of the existing theory on genocide focuses on explaining under what conditions and by what processes regimes commit large-scale violence against civilians. I argue that a critical missing dimension to studies of genocide, but also more generally to the study of political violence, is a methodological recognition of negative cases and a theoretical recognition of the dynamics of restraint that helps to explain such negative cases. That is, in addition to asking what causes leaders to choose to escalate violence, I argue that scholars should emphasize conditions that prompt moderation, de-escalation, or non-escalation. I propose an alternative framework for how to conceptualize the process of political violence and review the literature to identify key restraint mechanisms at micro, meso, and macro levels of analysis. I further articulate a provisional theory of genocide using this new analytical framework. I illustrate my argument with an empirical analysis of mass violence cases in Sub-Saharan Africa since independence, and with a more in-depth analysis of comparable crises in Rwanda and Cote d’Ivoire, where the trajectories of violence differed significantly. While this paper draws on extensive empirical research, my primary purpose is not to advance a developed new theory or to test particular hypotheses, but rather to outline a research agenda that promises to draw from and contribute to recent work on the comparative politics of violence.

Second-Generation Comparative Research on Genocide

Comparative research on the determinants of genocide has surged in recent years, as reflected in the six books under review. The new research makes genocide studies more systematic and theoretical; integrates the topic into mainstream social science disciplines; points to three emerging explanatory paradigms; and yields some surprising cumulative findings. However, the works also reveal significant conceptual, empirical, and methodological problems that limit the comparative enterprise and the search for a general theory. The article argues for an alternative, disaggregated approach that situates genocide within a spectrum of organized violence against civilians and links genocide studies to studies of violence in war.

Destroy them to save us: theories of genocide and the logics of political violence

Based on an analytic review of recent scholarly advances in genocide studies, this article investigates the causes, concept, and logic of genocide while suggesting a set of theoretical propositions and avenues for future research. Two emerging theoretical streams of literature on causes—strategic and ideological—highlight different dimensions of genocide and should be thought of as compatible. The study of genocide should be embedded in a broader study of political violence; the two literatures have been strangely cloistered from each other. To that end, genocide should be conceptualized as group-selective, large-scale violence whose purpose is group destruction. This stands in contrast to violence that is individually selective or indiscriminate; small-scale and not sustained across time and space; and whose purpose is repression, communication, or some other outcome short of group destruction. To develop existing theory and to bring the study of genocide closer to the literature on violence, studying variation in outcomes is essential; that is, students of genocide should ask why genocide and not another outcome occurs, rather than only studying common patterns among genocide cases. Similarly, rather than study primarily sources of escalation and accelerators of violence, scholars should also theorize restraint and decelerators of violence. Further, scholars of genocide should focus attention on the interaction between national and sub-national actors as well as periods of escalation or de-escalation. In these ways and others proposed in the essay, genocide studies can build on recent gains and develop a broader and more coherent field of theoretical inquiry.

A Step Forward

Introduction I begin this commentary with a general appreciation for the report of the Genocide Prevention Task Force (the Albright-Cohen Report).1 The contents of the report are a decisive step forward in the debate over how to prevent and stop genocide and other forms of mass violence. The report synthesizes in a coherent and accessible fashion a significant body of research, policy analysis, and insights from actors inside and outside government; it provides a menu of concrete and sensible policy options that are likely to frame debate on genocide prevention in the short term. These strengths, and a few more I shall discuss, constitute a major advance on policy and academic discussions regarding the question of genocide prevention. Such is my overall assessment, even if I will push back on a few points. Before moving to the substance of the report, I want to comment on the process of commenting. The Albright-Cohen Report brings to the fore a substantive tension in the field of genocide studies. On the one hand, many scholars in the field maintain and insist on a traditional scholarly approach to genocide-studies research. Their focus is on theory, evidence, methods, and argument. On the other hand, many scholars take a more normative and practical approach, often demonstrated by interest in the policy questions surrounding prevention and intervention. Scholars of the former rightfully approach their research topics from a valueneutral position, and they do not want policy concerns to drive the research design, results, and analysis. Indeed, a not particularly helpful but somewhat common response to scholarship is—I am paraphrasing—‘‘How will your theory help us stop genocide?’’ This response is not helpful for a number of reasons. To thrive as a field—to attract serious scholars, to advance research and understanding, and to earn recognition from and integration with other established scholarly arenas—a valueneutral scholarly approach that prizes theory, evidence, and methods is paramount. At the same time, it does not follow, as some researchers in the field maintain, that scholars should be uninterested in the normative and policy implications of scholarship. While researchers should aim for a value-neutral approach, the topic, in my view, is one that has unavoidable normative and ethical dimensions. Genocide studies is thus not a typical field of scholarly inquiry. The community of scholars in the field of genocide studies will benefit if there is room for the theoretical and normative approaches to cohabit a common intellectual space. To be sure, many scholars already bridge a theoretical/scholarly approach with normative/policy concerns, and, indeed, Genocide Studies and Prevention embodies that synthesis, as its title indicates. But there is also a need, in my view, to articulate the importance of a scholarly community that respects these two positions and aims for mutual engagement. In the end, the health of the field will improve if both positions thrive. The best scholarship will likely contribute the best ideas and information, which in turn will shape policy options for the better, even if the policy implications are not immediately clear. Genocide scholarship should not put policy first, but that does not mean that the former will not inform the latter. At the same time, it is a chimera to

Macro, Meso, and Micro Research on Genocide: Gains, Shortcomings, and Future Areas of Inquiry

The article critically reviews the existing literature on genocide and mass violence and divides it according to different levels of analysis: macro, meso, and micro levels. We discuss the main theories and findings at each level of analysis and suggest avenues for further research. We argue that the literature on genocide should pay more attention to meso and micro levels of analysis. We also identify a number of other research problems, including conceptualization, selection bias, case comparability, the role of restraint, the question of change over time, and the need to engage in dialogue with the broader social science scholarship on political violence and intrastate conflict.

Organic purity and the role of anthropology in Cambodia and Rwanda

Straus investigates the ideology of two genocidal regimes in the developing world: the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and Hutu Power in Rwanda. Although the regimes were quite different - one Communist, the other nationalist - he argues that their ideals converged around a notion of organic purity. Both regimes pursued extraordinary violence to meet the ideal: mass destruction was a method to achieve organic purity. Straus further contends that anthropological writings provided the necessary ideational building blocks for this ideal. In promoting a violent return to a mythic past, both murderous regimes embraced the images and concepts of European archaeology and ethnography.

Perils of pluralism: Electoral violence and incumbency in sub-Saharan Africa:

Why do some multiparty elections lead to political violence while others do not? Despite extensive literatures on democratization, civil war, and violence against civilians in civil war, the topic of electoral violence has received less attention. We develop a set of theoretical propositions to explain this variation, testing them on an original dataset on African elections from 1990 to 2008. We find that elections in which an incumbent presidential candidate is running for re-election are significantly more likely to experience electoral violence, both prior to the election and after voting has taken place. We argue that clientelism is behind this pattern, and that clients often resort to electoral violence to protect a reliable incumbent patron. On the other hand, when an incumbent candidate is not running for office, we argue that clients are less willing to assume the risks of participating in electoral violence because candidates in the election have not established a record of delivering patronage at the executive level. We further find some evidence that pre-existing social conflicts increase the risk of pre-election violence. We suggest that this finding is due to the tendency of political elites to mobilize voters around pre-existing political and economic grievances to promote their candidacies, in turn heightening tensions and divisions. We also examine, but find little support for, a number of other possible determinants of electoral violence, such as regime type, income level, international observers, ongoing civil war, pathway to power, and first elections after civil war. The article contributes not only to a small but growing literature on electoral violence but also to a burgeoning literature on political behavior in African elections.

What drives violence against civilians in civil war? Evidence from Guatemala’s conflict archives

Dominant theories of mass violence hold that strategic concerns in civil war drive the deliberate targeting of civilians. However, the causal mechanisms that link strategic objectives to large-scale violence against civilians remain underspecified, and as such the causal logics that underpin each remain blurred. In this article, we identify and explicate four plausible mechanisms that explain why armed groups would target, for strategic purposes, civilians in war. We then turn to the peak period of violence during the Guatemalan armed conflict to assess which mechanisms were most prevalent. Specifically, we leverage unique archival data: 359 pages of military files from Operation Sofía, a month-long counterinsurgent campaign waged in the northwestern Ixil region. Through process tracing of real-time internal communications, we find that state actors most commonly described the civilian population as loyal to rebel forces; violence against civilians was a means to weaken the insurgency. Troops on the ground also depicted the Ixil population as ‘winnable’, which suggests that security forces used violence in this period to shape civilian behavior. These findings are most consistent with the idea that mass violence in this case and period was a coercive instrument to defeat insurgents by punishing civilians for collaboration. The evidence from this period is less consistent with a logic of genocide, in which the purpose of violence would be to destroy ‘unwinnable’ civilian groups. Our analysis illustrates how a mechanism-centered approach based on process tracing of conflict archives can help uncover logics underlying civilian killing.