Can genocides be predicted? I present two models (and further robustness tests) to assess the risk of genocide onset one year into the future. The first model is global and includes all country-years for which data are available. While it does a good job at identifying the few cases of genocide onset in the sample, it also generates a high number of false alarms. The second model uses a smaller sample restricted to conflict-years. It correctly identifies nine of the ten cases of genocide onset and the number of false alarms is reduced, although the model needs further improvements before it can be put to practical use. While developing the models in an inductive, iterative way, I identify a number of factors that correlate with genocide onset, adding to existing research. These include direct threats to a government (riots, assassinations and, in one of the robustness tests, anti-government demonstrations) and economic discrimination against ethnic groups.

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Over the past two decades, substantial progress has been made toward a theoretical understanding of why physical integrity abuses are committed. Unfortunately, these theoretical developments have been devoid of much practical application. In this article, the authors explore the feasibility of risk assessment in the study of these human rights. Borrowing an approach by Gurr and Moore, they construct a risk assessment vehicle that uses existing models and data to develop expectations about future increases and decreases in human rights abuses. Their results indicate that we can isolate a set of cases that are at a higher risk of experiencing increased human rights abuse in the following year, as well as those that are ripe for better protection of human rights. The authors expect these risk and opportunity assessments to be of interest to students of conflict and peace studies, as well as to human rights activists and policy makers.

In this study. we construct a multivariate model that assesses the risk of an outbreak of civil war in a country over a period of 5 years into the future. In addition to structural factors of state weakness. which have dominated the literature on civil war onset, this model includes repression of basic human rights to personal integrity-an important harbinger of wars to come-as an aspect of state behavior. Our aim is not to explore the causal factors of civil war onset, but to build a model that includes indicators that correlate with civil war outbreak and may be used to predict it. Based on two versions of the model-Iogit and neural network-out-of-sample risk assessments for three different time periods are generated and compared to the historical record of civil war outbreak during those years. In addition, the model's ability to produce in-sample risk assessments over a 5-year period is tested. Finally. we compute truly predictive civil war risk assessments for all countries for which data are available. for the years 2008-2012. The analyses show that with a relatively simple model and based on publicly available data sources, meaningful civil war risk assessments can be computed. The quality of the predictions exceeds that of prominent studies. in which the risk of interstate war is assessed.

Why and when do states take the burden upon themselves to send peacekeepers into a civil war, rather than relying on intergovernmental organizations to do so? While there are a few empirical studies on the conditions under which the UN sends peacekeeping missions, no such analyses of state-conducted peacekeeping exist. In this study, a theoretical framework on state-conducted peacekeeping in civil wars is developed and empirically tested. Not surprisingly, when acting outside international organizations, states are able to take their own interests directly into account and select those civil wars to which they send peacekeepers accordingly. States' interests playa much greater role here than, for example, the interests of the major powers do for UN peacekeeping. When states send peacekeepers they are more likely to choose former colonies, military allies, trade partners, or countries with which they have ethnic ties. Yet, this does not mean that state-conducted peacekeeping occurs only where states see their own interests. Contrary to conventional wisdom, states also provide peacekeeping to 'tough' cases, the most challenging civil wars. These are long, ethnic wars. This tendency for states to provide peacekeeping holds when civil wars produce dire effects on civilians. States are more likely to send peacekeepers into civil wars that kill or displace many people. Finally, states react to opportunities: the more previous mediation attempts, the higher the chances for state-conducted peacekeeping.