Social Scientific Inquiry Into Genocide and Mass Killing: From Unitary Outcome to Complex Processes

Owens, Peter B.; Su, Yang; Snow, David A.

doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-071312-145650

Cited by 39 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…It may be more accurate to understand this state, and likely any geographic area, in terms of its diverse "microclimates" of ethnic contention (Ward 2014), where mobilization is ultimately contingent on a range of contextual factors. Similar insights have informed studies of mass collective violence, which seek to identify meso-and microlevel mechanisms that variously mobilize or demobilize adherents across divergent social environments (Karstedt 2013;Owens, Su, and Snow 2013). Interestingly, as our legacies of racial violence and propinquity findings indicate, and the distinct local history and statewide role of Rowan County best illustrates, these microclimates are not confined spatially or temporally, but rather have radiating influences.…”

Section: Comparative Case Analysis: Rowan Countymentioning

confidence: 73%

Threat, Competition, and Mobilizing Structures: Motivational and Organizational Contingenies of the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan

Owens¹,

Cunningham²,

Ward

2015

Soc Probl

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While previous studies of ethnic contention and conflict identify important structural and meso-level indicators of threat and competition, analysis of variation in the mechanisms linking these sources of potential grievance formation with mobilization remains unclear. To address this issue, this study explores the social organization of Ku Klux Klan mobilization in 1960s North Carolina. While regarded as a progressive state in the civil rights era, North Carolina exhibited a greater level of Klan mobilization than the rest of the South combined. We build on models of "mediated competition," where ethnic competition and group threat are held as necessary, and propinquity, authority work, and legacies of previous racial violence link threat and competition with mobilization. Extending prior formulations centered on the discrete impact of individual components of competition, we employ fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to precisely specify the conjunctural conditions governing two modes of Klan mobilization: public rally events and the establishment of local organizational units. Our findings indicate that the mobilizing effects of threat and competition varied between rural and urban areas, and that threat/competition and organization/leadership play a dual role in translating collective grievances into mobilization. K E Y W O R D S : vigilantism; social movements; racism; power relations; minority groups. Theories of ethnic competition and conflict emphasize the motivating role of threat in producing collective action intended to preserve in-group resources and status-quo power relations (Blalock 1957, 1967). Such approaches have broad purchase, and have been compellingly applied to a gamut of contentious outcomes, including ethnic identification and the hardening of divisive attitudes (Coenders

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Section: Comparative Case Analysis: Rowan Countymentioning

confidence: 73%

Threat, Competition, and Mobilizing Structures: Motivational and Organizational Contingenies of the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan

Owens¹,

Cunningham²,

Ward

2015

Soc Probl

Self Cite

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“…Although criminologists have devoted little attention to the perpetrators of genocide, other scholars have studied perpetrators across several episodes of genocide, largely focusing on the Holocaust and Rwanda (see Loyle, ; Owens, Su, and Snow, ; Verdeja, ). To date, these studies have reached one enduring conclusion—perpetrators of genocide are “normal.” For example, Browning's Ordinary Men (1998) argued that members of German Police Battalion 101, who committed many murders during the Holocaust, were family men of working‐class backgrounds.…”

Section: Genocide Crime and The Gendered Life Coursementioning

confidence: 99%

Age, Gender, and the Crime of Crimes: Toward a Life‐course Theory of Genocide Participation*

Brehm

Uggen

Gasanabo³

2016

Criminology

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This article asks whether genocide follows the age and gender distributions common to other crime. We develop and test a life‐course model of genocide participation to address this question using a new dataset of 1,068,192 cases tried in Rwanda's gacaca courts. Three types of prosecutions are considered: 1) inciting, organizing, or supervising violence; 2) killings and other physical assaults; and 3) offenses against property. By relying on systematic graphic comparisons, we find that the peak age of those tried in the gacaca courts was 34 years at the time of the genocide, which is older than the peak age for most other types of crime. We likewise find that women were more likely to participate in crimes against property and comparatively unlikely to commit genocidal murder. Symbolic–interactionist explanations of crime suggest people desist from crime as a result of shared understandings of the expectations of adulthood. We argue that this process may be turned on its head during genocide as participants may believe they are defending their communities against a perceived threat. Thus, in contrast to other criminological theories suggesting that people must desist from crime to be accorded adult status, some adults may participate in genocide to fulfill their duties as adult men.

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“…Meanwhile, scholars have called for greater methodological plurality in social inquiry on atrocities. Writing in the Annual Review of Sociology , Owens, Peter & Su () showed surprise that researchers have yet to utilize “recent advances in comparative configurational methods” to parse out the causal complexity that is commonly assumed to be inherent to genocide and mass killing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing Protest Massacres

Anisin¹

2019

J Historical Sociology

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Why do some bouts of collective action end in bloodshed? This study evaluates a diverse collection of cases featuring opposition movements that experienced government‐led massacres. Historically, protest massacres originate to 19th century struggles associated with populational needs of obtaining public goods and political representation from governments. Unlike genocide and politicide which are likely to take place during heightened conflict, protest massacres tend to occur outside of war and civil war. Data on 76 incidents (1819–2017) capturing direct action strategies, preceding levels of mobilization, regime threat levels, and temporal characteristics of each massacre is analyzed.

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Social Scientific Inquiry Into Genocide and Mass Killing: From Unitary Outcome to Complex Processes

Cited by 39 publications

References 49 publications

Threat, Competition, and Mobilizing Structures: Motivational and Organizational Contingenies of the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan

Threat, Competition, and Mobilizing Structures: Motivational and Organizational Contingenies of the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan

Age, Gender, and the Crime of Crimes: Toward a Life‐course Theory of Genocide Participation*

Comparing Protest Massacres

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