Studying Mass Violence: Pitfalls, Problems, and Promises

This article examines some of the main pitfalls, problems, and promises of genocide research. It argues that genocide is a viable academic concept if protected from moral, legal, political, and emotional constraints. It should be approached in a dispassionate, amoral, non-juridical, and apolitical way. The article further discusses a model for understanding genocide that identifies three levels of analysis: the interstate pressures of the global state system and the influence of crises and war; the intrastate context of radical ideology, state power, and the dynamic of the genocidal process; and the micro-level conditions that enable the involvement of individual actors in violence.