The Role of Civilians and Civil Society in Preventing Mass Atrocities

This paper synthesizes the results of a one-year, multicountry exploration of the role that civilians play in preventing and mitigating the trajectory of mass atrocity episodes. It is the culmination of a unique collaboration between the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide and three partner organizations: Congo Research Group, the Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research, and the Sudd Institute. In consultation with the Simon-Skjodt Center, each country team conducted a subnational comparative study of civilian involvement in mass atrocity episodes. This paper brings together the findings from each country study to offer a general framework for understanding civilian agency and assesses how well existing theories of civilian action can account for the outcomes across cases. In addition, it addresses the conceptual and methodological challenges of studying civilian agency and the role of civil society cross-nationally. The study calls for a reconceptualization of civil society that moves away from traditional concepts in favor of foregrounding the political and economic contexts that civilians navigate during a conflict and its aftermath. 1 We thank participants in the January 2020 Civilian Agency and Civilian Protection in Violent Settings workshop at McGill University for their comments on an earlier version of this paper.

[1]  L. Hancock.  Resilient Communities: Non-Violence and Civilian Agency in Communal War. By Jana Krause. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 294p. $100.00 cloth, $32.99 paper. , 2021, Perspectives on Politics.

[2]  Allyson Benton.  Inside Countries: Subnational Research in Comparative Politics. Edited by Agustina Giraudy, Eduardo Moncada, and Richard Snyder. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. 386p. $99.99 cloth, $34.99 paper. , 2021, Perspectives on Politics.

[3]  Z. Mampilly,et al.  Resistance and Repression under the Rule of Rebels: Women, Clergy, and Civilian Agency in LTTE Governed Sri Lanka , 2019, Comparative Politics.

[4]  Michael A. Rubin.  Rebel Territorial Control and Civilian Collective Action in Civil War: Evidence from the Communist Insurgency in the Philippines , 2019, Journal of Conflict Resolution.

[5]  R. Braun.  Protectors of Pluralism: Religious Minorities and the Rescue of Jews in the Low Countries during the Holocaust , 2019, Social Forces.

[6]  J. Sellers.  From Within to Between Nations: Subnational Comparison across Borders , 2019, Perspectives on Politics.

[7]  L. Hancock.  Resisting war: how communities protect themselves , 2018, Peacebuilding.

[8]  Nicole Fox,et al.  "I Decided to Save Them": Factors That Shaped Participation in Rescue Efforts during Genocide in Rwanda , 2018 .

[9]  A. Shostak.  Ordinary Jews: Choice and Survival during the Holocaust , 2018 .

[10]  Blake Lawrinson.  Fundamentals of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention , 2017 .

[11]  A. Arjona.  Rebelocracy: Social Order in the Colombian Civil War , 2016 .

[12]  Henning Tamm.  Rebel Leaders, Internal Rivals, and External Resources: How State Sponsors Affect Insurgent Cohesion , 2016 .

[13]  Jana Krause.  Non-Violence and Civilian Agency in Communal War: Evidence from Jos, Nigeria , 2016 .

[14]  C. B. Eze.  The Role of csos in Promoting Human Rights Protection, Mass Atrocities Prevention, and Civilian Protection in Armed Conflicts , 2016 .

[15]  Betcy Jose,et al.  Understanding why and how civilians resort to self-protection in armed conflict , 2015 .

[16]  T. Paffenholz.  Unpacking the local turn in peacebuilding: a critical assessment towards an agenda for future research , 2015, The ‘Local Turn’ in Peacebuilding.

[17]  P. Justino,et al.  Bridging Micro and Macro Approaches on Civil Wars and Political Violence , 2014 .

[18]  A. Arjona.  Civilian Resistance to Rebel Governance , 2014 .

[19]  J. A. Boutellis.  From Crisis to Reform: Peacekeeping Strategies for the Protection of Civilians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo , 2013 .

[20]  Mary B. Anderson,et al.  Opting Out of War: Strategies to Prevent Violent Conflict , 2012 .

[21]  Roger Mac Ginty.  Routine peace: Technocracy and peacebuilding , 2012 .

[22]  Lisa Karlborg.  The Trouble with the Congo: Local Violence and the Failure of International Peacebuilding , 2011 .

[23]  D. Simon.  Killing Neighbors: Webs of Violence in Rwanda , 2011 .

[24]  Thomas V. Maher,et al.  Threat Assessment and Collective-Action Emergence: Death-Camp and Ghetto Resistance During the Holocaust , 2011 .

[25]  T. Raeymaekers.  Protection for Sale? War and the Transformation of Regulation on the Congo–Ugandan Border , 2010 .

[26]  Nissim Mannathukkaren.  The ‘Poverty’ of Political Society: Partha Chatterjee and the People's Plan Campaign in Kerala, India , 2010 .

[27]  R. Brennan,et al.  Update on Mortality in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Results From a Third Nationwide Survey , 2009, Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness.

[28]  E. Chenoweth,et al.  Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict , 2008, International Security.

[29]  Jay Ulfelder,et al.  Assessing Risks of State-Sponsored Mass Killing , 2008 .

[30]  Ken Menkhaus,et al.  Governance without Government in Somalia: Spoilers, State Building, and the Politics of Coping , 2007, International Security.

[31]  M. Clements,et al.  Mortality in the Democratic Republic of Congo: a nationwide survey , 2006, The Lancet.

[32]  Koen Vlassenroot,et al.  The politics of rebellion and intervention in Ituri:the emergence of a new political complex? , 2004 .

[33]  Arsène Mwaka Bwenge.  Les Milices Mayi-mayi à lest de La Republique du Congo: Dynamique d'une Gouvernementalité en Situation de Crise , 2004 .

[34]  Lee Ann Fujii.  Transforming the moral landscape: the diffusion of a genocidal norm in Rwanda , 2004 .

[35]  S. F. Alatas.  Academic Dependency and the Global Division of Labour in the Social Sciences , 2003 .

[36]  A. Varshney.  Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India , 2002 .

[37]  J. P. Lederach.  Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies , 1998 .

[38]  James C. Scott,et al.  Weapons of the Weak , 1985 .

[39]  Disturbance,et al.  Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I) , 1978, American Journal of International Law.

[40]  Thomas V. Mahera.  Threat, Resistance, and Collective Action: The Cases , 2016 .

[41]  T. Raeymaekers.  The Power of Protection. Governance and Transborder Trade on the Congo-Ugandan Frontier , 2007 .

[42]  Les Roberts,et al.  Mortality in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Results from a Nationwide Survey , 2003 .

[43]  Célestin Monga.  The Anthropology of Anger: Civil Society and Democracy in Africa , 1996 .