The British Journal of Sociology 2011 Dec 12 Vol 62 Iss 4 Bradley

The British Journal of Sociology 2011 Volume 62 Issue 4
Genocide as a matter of degree1 bjos_1382 586..612
Bradley Campbell
Abstract
This article employs Max Weber’s ideal-type method to classify genocides based
on their degree of mass killing, unilateralism, and ethnic liability. The identification
of the elements of genocide draws from a general theory of genocide (Campbell
2009, 2010) and from theories of social control employing Donald Black’s (1995,
1998) theoretical approach, known as pure sociology. Because these theories iden-
tify the social features associated with each element of genocide, they can explain
the form genocides take.
Keywords: Violence; genocide; ethnic conflict; social control; pure sociology
Introduction
The failure to allow for variation, according to Stephan Fuchs,‘suffocates much

of social science’ (2001: 12). Too often, sociologists search for the intrinsic
nature of the things they study. Thus they distract themselves with debates
about definitions and other irresolvable matters. Or they limit the range of
variation with dichotomies that treat, say, an organization as either bureau-
cratic or anarchic, or a society as either a premodern Gemeinschaft or a
modern Gesellschaft (Fuchs 2001: 13). But if we allow for variation, says Fuchs,
we see that such differences are differences in degree, not kind. Bureaucracy
and anarchy are thus opposite ends of a continuum. So are Gemeinschaft and
Gesellschaft, and even in modern society there are ‘pockets of tribal solidarity
within enlarged cosmopolitan networks’ (Fuchs 2001: 52).
The same kinds of problems often characterize the study of genocide. Schol-
ars debate what genocide is (Shaw 2007), whether particular cases are genocides
(Katz 1994), and whether or not the Holocaust was ‘unique’ (Rosenbaum
2001). Some even see the Holocaust as mysterious and perhaps resistant to
Campbell (Department of Sociology California State University, Los Angeles 5151 State University Drive Los Angeles, CA 90032
USA) (Corresponding author email: bcampbe3@calstatela.edu)
© London School of Economics and Political Science 2011 ISSN 0007-1315 print/1468-4446 online.
Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden,
MA 02148, USA on behalf of the LSE. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-4446.2011.01382.x
Genocide as a matter of degree 587
explanation entirely (Diner 1990: 144). But the key is to treat genocide and
other phenomena as variable. This has been the focus of my previous work,
which offers a theory explaining several variable aspects of genocide – not only
its occurrence, but also variation within genocides, such as specifically who
participates, who is killed, and who is spared or rescued (Campbell 2009; 2010).
Participation in genocide is variable, for example, and much more so than
suggested by traditional classifications of people as perpetrators, bystanders,
or rescuers. Not only are there degrees of participation and rescuing, but
individuals may even engage in contradictory behaviour: They may act as both
perpetrators and rescuers (Campbell 2010; see also Fujii 2009: 8). Here I turn to
another important aspect of genocidal variation: the differences between cases
of genocide.As I show, genocide is a matter of degree. It is a continuum varying
along several dimensions, and this variation can be explained. But first, since
this analysis employs Donald Black’s (1995) strategy of pure sociology, let us
begin by discussing pure sociology and its relation to the study of genocide.
The pure sociology of genocide
Pure sociology is applicable to a range of behaviours, but it has been applied

most often to the study of conflict and social control. Conflict occurs when
people have grievances – when they define someone’s behaviour as deviant –
and social control refers to any way of handling deviant behaviour. Pure
sociologists have examined conflict and social control broadly (Black 1998;
2011; Cooney 2009a; Horwitz 1990), and many have also examined particular
forms of social control – including law (Black 1976), feuding (Black 2004b:
153–4; Cooney 1998: 73–83), terrorism (Black 2004a; Hawdon and Ryan 2009),
interpersonal violence (Cooney 1998; Phillips and Cooney 2005), and suicide
(Manning forthcoming). Pure sociologists have also examined social control
by Alcoholics Anonymous members (Hoffmann 2006), institutional review
boards (Jacques and Wright 2010), employees (Tucker 1999), members of
minority ethnic groups (Baumgartner 1998; Cooney 2009b), and others.
Blackian theories of social control are crucial to understanding genocide,
which is also a form of social control (Campbell 2009: 155–8). These theories
explain the reaction to conflicts. A conflict occurs whenever at least one person
has a grievance against another, and any particular conflict can elicit many
responses. A landlord whose tenant owes rent money, for example, may do
nothing at all, negotiate informally with the tenant, or file a lawsuit. A husband
whose wife is having an affair may get a divorce, kill himself, or kill his wife. A
man assaulted by a stranger in a bar may walk away, call the police, or fight
back. Political elites with grievances against ethnic minorities may curtail their
freedoms, expel them from the country, or kill them. With any form of deviant
behaviour, numerous responses are possible, but the actual response depends
British Journal of Sociology 62(4) © London School of Economics and Political Science 2011
588 Bradley Campbell
on the social geometry of the conflict, which consists of the participants’ social
characteristics (Black 1995: 853–4, 2004b: 145). For example, in any conflict, the
aggrieved parties may fail to respond: They may tolerate the offence. This form
of social control – toleration – is more likely when people have grievances
against social superiors, such as when employees are offended by the conduct
of their employers. In other words, upward tolerance is more likely than
downward tolerance (Black 1998: 89). Other forms of social control can be
explained similarly. The characteristics of conflicts – such as whether they are
upward or downward, between intimates or strangers, or between organiza-
tions or individuals – predict whether dueling, feuding, corporal punishment,
avoidance, negotiation, gossip, law, therapy, or something else will be the
response. Each form of social control occurs in a particular geometrical
environment.
Since violence is often a response to a conflict, it can be explained with
theories of social control. There are two ways of doing this. One is to identify
the geometrical features associated with variable aspects of violent social
control. Reciprocal violence of all kinds is associated with equality, for
example, and violence becomes more lethal as the social distance between the
disputants increases (Black 1998: 75–6, 2004b: 148). Another way of explaining
violence is to identify the multidimensional geometry associated with very
specific forms of violence. Black, for example, defines the classic blood feud as
a ‘precise, extended, and open exchange of killings, usually one death at a
time’, and he proposes that the classic blood feud occurs under the following
conditions: ‘The participants are groups largely equal in size and other
resources; homogeneous in ethnicity; functionally similar in their activities;
mutually independent economically and otherwise; highly solidary in their
internal relations; and isolated from one another by an intermediate degree of
relational distance, close enough only for mutual recognition’ (Black 2004b:
153). These two ways of explaining violence are complementary. For example,
feuding is reciprocal because the conflicting groups are equal. Likewise, the
explanation of lethality tells us why feuding is lethal but limited, often to one
death at a time. It is because feudists are close in some ways and distant in
others. In principle we can identify the multidimensional social geometry of
any form of social control, provided we have identified the elements that
distinguish it from other forms, and provided we know the geometrical fea-
tures associated with each element.
Note that when using this strategy it is essential to have a well constructed
definition of the phenomenon to be explained. If our terms are unclear and
imprecise, our explanation will be unclear and imprecise (Senechal de la
Roche 2004). Nor can we explain a phenomenon if we have defined it based on
unimportant features. In defining a dependent variable, what we must do is
identify a distinct form of social control – something clearly distinguished from
other forms by theoretically relevant characteristics. This is what Black does in
© London School of Economics and Political Science 2011 British Journal of Sociology 62(4)
defining the classic blood feud, and his theory is enabled by a definition that
points to the precision, duration, restraint, reciprocalism, and lethality of this
form of violence – factors associated with different social geometries and
which together distinguish blood feuds from vendettas, wars, lynchings, riots,
duels, and other forms of violence.
This is also what my definition of genocide does. I define genocide as uni-
lateral, ethnically based mass killing (cf. Campbell 2009: 153). This definition
differs from others, but it is not wholly idiosyncratic, since each aspect corre-
sponds to some extent to one or more well known definitions. For example,
genocide is also a form of mass killing for Charny (1994: 75), Chalk and
Jonassohn (1990:23), Melson (1992: 36), and Midlarsky (2005: 22). ‘Unilateral’
corresponds to the term ‘one-sided’ as used by Chalk and Jonassohn (1990:
23–4) as well as to Fein’s stipulation that genocide be ‘sustained regardless of
the surrender or lack of threat offered by the victim’ (1993: 24) and to Charny’s
stipulation that genocide occurs ‘under conditions of the essential defenseless-
ness and helplessness of the victims’ (1994: 75). And the restriction of genocide
to ethnic targets is consistent with definitions used by Bauer (1999: 35), Harff
and Gurr (1988: 360), Lemkin (1944:79), and Midlarsky (2005: 22). Still, this
definition differs from the others, and it has advantages they do not. Of course,
this does not mean other definitions are wrong. Social scientists do not formu-
late ‘real’ definitions – at least in the sense of determining the essential nature
or essential attributes of some phenomenon (Hempel 1952: 6). Definitions of
genocide cannot justifiably be described as correct or incorrect, as if genocide
is somehow out there awaiting the proper definition (cf. Gibbs 1989: 329;
Senechal de la Roche 2004: 1, n. 1).2 Definitions instead are formulated for
specific purposes. Such purposes may be philosophical, political, legal, or
whatever, but mine are scientific.
Scientific definitions are evaluated according to their utility. One aspect of
this is a definition’s ease of application (Senechal de la Roche 2004: 2). Many
previous definitions of genocide are difficult to apply to actual cases, as they
specify certain motives or goals on the part of the perpetrators that are difficult
or impossible to observe. For instance, Katz (1994) and Chalk and Jonassohn
(1990) both require the intention to destroy an entire group, yet Katz argues
that only the Holocaust fits his definition while Chalk and Jonassohn include
numerous cases. The inherent difficulty in observing such intentions makes it
easy for scholars with very similar definitions to include different cases.3 In
contrast, we can in most cases readily observe whether mass killing has
occurred, whether it is unilateral, and whether it is ethnically based. This
definition is thus more easily applied than many others. It distinguishes among
cases of violence, and ultimately, it also aids in explanation. This is because,
unlike with other definitions of genocide, its elements have been carefully
selected to make the definition relevant to a broader body of theoretical work.
Like Black’s definition of the classic blood feud, each element specified by my
definition of genocide is a variable aspect of social control associated with

particular geometrical characteristics. In previous work, I have therefore been
able to draw from theories of social control (e.g., Black 1998, 2004a, b; Senechal
de la Roche 1996, 2001) to offer the following explanation: Genocide is more
likely as ethnic conflicts are characterized by immobility, social distance, and
inequality, and as the grievances are directed toward social inferiors rather
than superiors or equals (Campbell 2009: 160, 2010: 303). But as I show here,
the definition is useful not just in distinguishing genocide from other phenom-
ena and explaining its occurrence; it is also useful in distinguishing genocides
from one another and explaining their differences. Genocides may involve
more or less mass killing, unilateralism, and ethnic liability, and so these
characteristics of genocide can also form the basis for a typology of genocide.
Elements of an ideal type of genocide
‘An ideal type’, according to Max Weber, ‘is formed by the one-sided accen-
tuation of one or more points of view and by the synthesis of a great many
diffuse, discrete, more or less present and occasionally absent concrete indi-
vidual phenomena . . . ’ (1969: 17). Weber’s discussion and use of ideal types is
often confused and inconsistent (Bailey 1994: 17–8; Lazarsfeld 1962: 464;
Lopreato and Alston 1970: 89–90). Weber’s discussion is also troublesome in
that he did not see any general scientific value in the ideal type. He believed it
would aid in clarifying the meaning of social phenomena – which he saw as the
task of the social sciences – rather than in the formation of general explana-
tions – which he saw as the task of the natural sciences (Hekman 1983: 35).
But we can use the ideal type without faithfulness either to Weber’s full
discussion of the concept or to his beliefs about science. In certain circum-
stances, the ideal type is in fact an extremely valuable – even scientifically
valuable – classification technique. When a concept varies along a number of
equally important dimensions, rather than constructing an unwieldy typology
with too many values, we can instead focus on the top range of values in each
dimension. And because the ideal type identifies the top range – the extreme
values rather than the typical values – we can focus on each aspect of the
phenomenon simultaneously and with extreme clarity. We can also use the
ideal type – the clearest example of the phenomenon, where all the features
are magnified – to examine the extent to which actual cases differ from the
ideal (Bailey 1994: 10–21). Thus, while the ideal type, in Weber’s words, is a
‘utopia’ that ‘cannot be found empirically anywhere in reality’ (1969: 17), it
gives us a shorthand way of describing the empirical variation we do find.
Genocide varies along a number of dimensions, and an ideal type can provide
a way of analysing this variation. So let us now examine the ways each aspect
of genocide varies.
Mass killing
Feuds normally involve the killing of one person at time (Black 2004b: 153).
Lynchings target individuals (Senechal de la Roche 1996: 103), as do most
homicides in modern societies (Cooney 2003: 1385–6). But genocide is a form
of mass killing. Like running amok (Black 2011: 10), terrorism (Black 2004a),
and warfare, it involves the killing of large numbers of people. Mass killing
varies along two dimensions: intensiveness and scale. The intensiveness of
genocide refers to the portion of the targets killed, and the scale refers to the
time period and territory over which the killing operates.
First, consider two genocides characterized mainly by a low degree of mass
killing. In nineteenth-century Australia, European settlement brought about a
significant decline in the Aboriginal population – from 300,000 to 50,000 – due
in part to the direct killing of approximately 20,000 Aborigines by Europeans
and their Aboriginal allies in the Native Police Force (Reynolds 2006: 125–7).
Particularly at the outset, though, the scale of the killing was minimal, involv-
ing only small groups of white settlers joining together briefly to kill nearby
Aborigines. The same was true of the massacres of California’s Yuki Indians,
whose population declined, largely due to genocide, from about 12,000 in the
mid-1850s to only 600 ten years later (Thornton 1986: 119, 123). In the 1850s,
white cattle ranchers began to settle in an area known as the Round Valley, and
when the Yuki Indians living there began killing the ranchers’ cattle, whites
would form small groups to kill nearby Indians. The intensiveness of killing in
each case was also low. Often killing expeditions resulted in only a few deaths,
and in general, conflicts against Aborigines and Indians might be dealt with in
other ways. In the Round Valley, for example, settlers sometimes brought
Indians to the local reservation instead of killing them.
Mass killing may also be low on one dimension and high on another. Con-
sider the 1992 killings of Muslims in Bosnia. Bosnia, which had a 44 per cent
Muslim and 31 per cent Serb population, was one of several republics to secede
from Yugoslavia in the early 1990s after conflict with the Serb-dominated
central government (Cigar 1995: 5). Serbs within Bosnia opposed secession
and declared Serb Autonomous regions and later the new Republika Srpska,
which by the end of 1992 covered 70 per cent of what had been Bosnia (Judah
1997: 239; Malcolm 1994: 224). By this time, ethnic Croats and Muslims were
largely gone from Bosnian Serb territory, a result mainly of expulsions, but also
of the killing of 200,000 to 250,000 Bosnian Muslims – more than 10 per cent
of the population – by Yugoslavian forces and Serbian militia groups (Gutman
1993: xxxi). Here the intensiveness of the killing was limited. For example, in an
attack on the heavily Muslim area of Kozarac, Serbs killed 2,500 to 5,000 of the
town’s 27,000 non-Serbs and expelled the rest from their homes (Battiata 1992;
Hukanovic 1996: 88; Maass 1996: 38–9; Pervanic 1999: 44–5; Wesselingh and
Vaulerin 2005: 43). Here and in similar attacks elsewhere, the Serbs killed
many Muslims but brought many more to one of three concentration camps.
At two of these, the Omarska and Keraterm camps, where Muslim men were
held, there were mass executions, lethal interrogations, and other killings
(Hukanovic 1996: 27–8, 71–2; Gutman 1993: xiv, 145; Wesselingh and Vaulerin
2005: 51–3; Vulliamy 1994: 108–12). But even here, most of the prisoners
survived. At the Omarska camp, for example, 4,000 to 5,000 men were killed
out of perhaps 13,000 (Gutman 1993: xiv, xxxi, 145). But while the intensive-
ness was low, the scale of the killing was high – occurring at multiple locations
throughout the Bosnian areas under Serbian control.
Other genocides, such as the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the Holocaust,
were extreme in both intensiveness and scale. In Rwanda, over a period of
three months, Hutus killed 500,000 to 800,000 Tutsis, about three-fourths of the
country’s Tutsi population (Des Forges 1999: 15), while the Holocaust, which
occurred throughout Nazi-occupied Europe, resulted in the deaths of two-
thirds of European Jews – and more than 90 per cent of Jews in places such as
Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia (Shochat 1974: 301). In each case, the
killing took the form not of various localized massacres spurred by individual
grievances, or even a larger campaign of ethnic cleansing, but rather a large-
scale, systematic campaign of ethnic extermination.
The intensiveness and scale of genocide vary with each of the elements
associated with genocide in general – immobility, social distance, and inequal-
ity – but each is more strongly associated with certain features in particular.
Intensiveness, first of all, is closely associated with the adversaries’ immobility.
Genocide in general is associated with immobility, since the possibility of
ethnic expulsion and other means of forced separation decreases the likeli-
hood of genocide (Campbell 2009: 160). But there may be more or less
immobility. The expulsion of an ethnic group may be possible but extremely
difficult, or it may be possible to remove only part of an ethnic group. In these
circumstances, expulsion and other forms of social control may be used in
conjunction with genocide.4 This was clearly the case in the Round Valley.
Immobility was present, given that the settlers and Indians were attempting to
make use of the same land, yet some of the Indians could be captured and
confined on the local reservation. So when groups of settlers joined together to
punish nearby Indians, they killed some and captured others. In Bosnia, too, a
degree of mobility limited the intensiveness of killing by allowing for options
other than killing. The fact that Serbs and Muslims lived throughout all parts
of Bosnia closed off some options for peace. It meant there was initially no way
to divide the state to resolve the ethnic conflict (Mann 2005: 366). But ulti-
mately Bosnia did break up, and the violence subsided after it had altered
the ethnic composition of the areas that would become two separate
political entities. Most of the violence that brought this about involved expul-
sion rather than genocide. Expulsion was possible because areas controlled
by the Muslim-dominated Bosnian government were available as a close-by
destination for Muslims in Serb-controlled territories. It was easier to deport

rather than kill these people – especially women, children, and elderly men
who would not add to Bosnia’s police force.
The scale of mass killing is closely associated with organization. Organiza-
tion refers to the capacity for collective action, and while all groups are
organized to some degree, more organized groups are larger, more enduring,
and more formal (Black 1976: 85; Senechal de la Roche 1996: 103–4). Genocide
in general is characterized by organizational inequality – with the killers more
organized than the targets – but the scale of genocide can only be extreme
when the organization of the killers is also extreme. Thus, the genocides in
Australia and the Round Valley of California, which were conducted by small,
impermanent, and informal groups, were also small in scale. Moreover, in both
cases, as the organization of the killers increased, so did the scale of the killings.
In Queensland this occurred with the formation of Native Police units
intended to protect whites in frontier areas (Palmer 2000: 49–50). Made up of
Aborigines led by white officers, the Native Police would attack Aborigines in
response to various offences or attack gatherings of Aborigines unprovoked.
Though extremely small in number – consisting of groups of six to twelve
troopers and one officer and never numbering any more than 206 men total
(Moses 2000: 102) – these forces were still more permanent and formal than
the small bands of settlers. Similarly, in the Round Valley settlers eventually
formed the Eel River Rangers, a militia group responsible for killing perhaps
more than a thousand Indians over a period of six months (Carranco and
Beard 1981: 95–7; Garrett 1969: 70–1; Miller 1979: 72). Of course, these cases
were still relatively low in both organization and scale compared with the
Rwandan genocide and the Holocaust, each of which involved mass partici-
pation by people involved in enduring and formal groups.
As we can see, scale increases with organization, but we can further specify
the conditions conducive to large-scale genocide by identifying the conditions
associated with increasing organization. First, when the continuity of deviant
behaviour is high – when offences are frequent – aggrieved parties may orga-
nize to deal with such offences on an ongoing basis rather than deal with each
as it arises (Senechal de la Roche 1996: 118). The initial genocidal expeditions
in Queensland and in the Round Valley illustrate this in that they almost
always responded to some specific offence – such as the killing of a settler’s
livestock. As the offences continued, more organized groups – the Native
Police and the Eel River Rangers – formed to deal more generally with the
same kinds of offences on a greater scale. In the highly organized, large-scale
genocides – such as the Bosnian genocide, the Rwandan genocide, and the
Holocaust – deviant behaviour has an even higher level of continuity. These
do not involve localized offences like murders or thefts – not even a series
of them – but instead ongoing offences like civil wars and conspiracies to
dominate other groups (Campbell 2009: 155–6).
Greater organization is also associated with strong partisanship. Third

parties act as strong partisans when they give intense support to one side of a
conflict over the other, and strong partisanship is present whenever groups
engage in violence (Black 1998: 131–2; Senechal de la Roche 2001: 128). The
geometry of a conflict predicts the pattern of partisanship: First, strong parti-
sanship occurs when one side of a conflict is superior to the other, as third
parties support the higher-status adversary. Second, it occurs when third
parties are close to one side of the conflict and remote from the other, as they
support the closer adversary (Black 1998: 127, 131–2). Third, strong partisans
are more likely to form groups necessary for collective violence when they are
socially close to one another – or solidary (Senechal de la Roche 2001: 128–9).
In small-scale genocides, the theory of partisanship explains why groups ini-
tially form, but it also explains cases where they become more organized over
time. As the geometrical pattern associated with partisanship becomes more
pronounced, third party support becomes more intense, and genocide may
become more organized and larger in scale.
In the frontier areas of Queensland and the Round Valley, when a settler was
attacked or his property stolen or damaged, the aggrieved party was able to
attract the support of nearby whites. These settlers would have been socially
close to one another but extremely distant from the socially inferior Aborigi-
nes and Indians they attacked. But later, not only did the conflict become more
continuous, the geometry of the conflicts also changed. In Queensland, the
original commandant of the Native Police, Frederick Walker, intended the
force to protect both whites and Aborigines, but settlers who demanded a
more aggressive policy toward blacks succeeded in having Walker replaced in
1855 (Moses 2000: 100; Palmer 2000: 50). They also had control of the Native
Police transferred from Sydney to local magistrates – who were socially closer
to the aggrieved settlers and sympathetic to their concerns (Moses 2000: 100).
The Native Police were now in a geometrical location suited to stronger
partisanship toward the settlers, and they began regularly engaging in geno-
cidal acts.5
In the Round Valley, the conflict changed with the involvement of an
extremely high-status and well-connected rancher. The triggering event for the
formation of the Eel River Rangers seems to have been the killing of a prized
black stallion belonging to Serranus Hastings – a wealthy landowner and
former chief justice of the California Supreme Court (Carranco and Beard
1981: 83–4; Garrett 1969: 60). An absentee landowner, Hastings had hired H. L.
Hall to supervise his stock. Hall had previously organized genocidal parties in
response to offences against Hastings’s stock, but with this new offence Hast-
ings himself became involved. He then petitioned the governor of California –
a personal friend – to raise a company of volunteers to deal with Indian theft
and aggression (Garrett 1969: 66; Miller 1979: 68). With a higher status than the
other aggrieved parties and social ties to other prominent citizens, Hastings
was in an ideal social location to attract stronger support. The aggressors thus
became more organized, and the scale of the genocide increased.
The largest-scale genocides – such as the Bosnian, Rwandan, and Nazi
cases – have been state-led genocides. In such cases, rather than a group
forming in response to a grievance, highly organized state officials themselves
formulate the grievances and orchestrate the violence. These are non-
democratic states, which have a number of features conducive to large-scale
violence. Since decision making is highly centralized, the group that controls
the government is likely to be highly solidary, and so they formulate grievances
as a group. They can also easily mobilize support through the military and state
bureaucracies, and where they need more support, their social location – their
extremely high status and, frequently, their social closeness to most of their
citizens – is conducive to strong partisanship.
Unilateralism
Unilateral violence is one-sided. It moves mainly in one direction, and it differs
from reciprocal violence, which travels both ways simultaneously – as in a fist
fight – or back and forth between adversaries over time – as in a blood feud
(Black 1998: 5–6). When unilateralism is extreme, only one side of a conflict
uses violence, such as would usually be the case when a parent spanks a
disobedient child. But unilateralism varies, and some violence may flow from
the other direction even when violence is mainly one-sided. This occurs when
reciprocal violence gives way to unilateral violence during the course of a
conflict – such as when a victorious fighter continues pummeling a defeated
and incapacitated enemy. Unilateral violence may also occur in response to
previous violence – such as when a child is spanked for slapping her mother –
or it may provoke violence – such as when a child being spanked tries to fight
back. These are not pure cases of unilateralism, but the violence is asymmetri-
cal enough to distinguish them from reciprocal violence, where there adver-
saries behave similarly toward one another.
Genocide is unilateral, and its unilateralism distinguishes it from numerous
other forms of violence. In particular, it distinguishes genocide from warfare, a
form of reciprocal violence that may in other ways be quite similar (Markusen
1987). But since the degree of unilateralism is variable, genocides may be
distinguished from one another along this same dimension. Like a fist fight, a
war may become unilateral with the defeat of one side, such as when soldiers
engage in mass killing after battles (Collins 2008: 94–9; Freeman 1995: 218–21)
or after standoffs initially consisting of low-level reciprocal violence (Kluse-
mann 2010). Genocide is also less unilateral when it provokes a violent
response or when it is itself a response to previous violence. For example,
as noted above, Europeans and their allies killed approximately 20,000
Australian Aborigines during the nineteenth century. But during the same time
period, Aborigines also killed between 2,000 and 2,500 Europeans (Reynolds
2006: 125–7). These killings targeted individuals or small groups of whites, and
whites normally responded with massive retaliation – often involving the
indiscriminate killing of blacks for weeks or even months afterward (Loos
1982: 46; Palmer 2000: 43; Reynolds 2006: 84–8). The violence was mainly
unilateral – nearly ten times greater in one direction than the other – but each
side might respond to the other’s violence.
The Rwandan genocide was also characterized in some ways by a low degree
of unilateralism. The unilateral elements are clear, as the targets were men,
women, and children who were neither combatants nor inhabitants of enemy-
occupied territory. Still, this anti-Tutsi violence was connected to violence
elsewhere by Tutsis against Hutus. In 1972, for example, a genocide led by the
Tutsi government of neighbouring Burundi had resulted in 100,000 deaths, and
in 1993, after Tutsi army officers assassinated Burundi’s Hutu president,
pogroms against Tutsis followed by army killings against Hutus resulted in
50,000 deaths (Prunier 1998: 198–206).Additionally, an army of Tutsi exiles had
invaded Rwanda in 1990 and forced the government to negotiate a power-
sharing agreement. Hutus blamed these Tutsi rebels for the 1994 assassination
of Rwanda’s president, and the killing of Tutsi civilians in Rwanda began
shortly thereafter. At this time, the civil war between the Rwandan govern-
ment and the Tutsi exiles also resumed, and during its course the Tutsi exiles
engaged not only in warfare, but also in civilian massacres – resulting in
between 25,000 and 60,000 deaths (Des Forges 1999: 16). Of course, the geno-
cide of Rwandan Tutsis was larger than this or any previous massacre in either
Burundi or Rwanda, and the Tutsis targeted were not involved in the civil war.
Still, violence by Tutsis against Hutus was occurring at the same time, and
Rwanda’s Tutsis were attacked in part because of their ethnic similarity to
Burundians who had killed Hutus and to Rwandan exiles leading an invading
army. The violence was mainly unilateral, but not completely so.
The Bosnian genocide also had some reciprocal elements. The killing mainly
involved Serbs killing Muslims. To a lesser extent Serbs killed Croats, and
Croats killed Muslims, but Muslim violence against Serbs was rare (Maass
1996: 32). Still, it did occur. The Bosnian army, for example, committed a
small number of atrocities, and one Muslim warlord killed hundreds of Serbs
(Vulliamy 1998: 76).
Extremely unilateral genocide, on the other hand, is completely one-sided.
This was the case with the Round Valley massacres, which almost always
occurred in response to the killing of stock. Indians in the valley rarely
attacked whites, and in the handful of cases where they did, the violence was
very limited – usually to one death at a time (Carranco and Beard 1981: 64–7,
92; Miller 1979: 50–1). The Holocaust, too, was extremely unilateral. The kill-
ings of European Jews occurred during a war, and the Nazis believed they were
in a ‘war against the Jews’, even that this was a war the Jews themselves had
begun (Dawidowicz 1975; Herf 2005). But there had been no Jewish-led mas-
sacres of Germans, for instance, and no invasion by a Jewish army. The overall
conflict was also more one-sided than other cases. Mann (2005: 6, 503) argues
that murderous ethnic cleansing normally arises in situations where two ethnic
groups make political claims to the same territory, but as he points out, the
Holocaust deviates from this pattern. Jews made no political claims, and in any
case there was no plausible scenario in which a Jewish state would be estab-
lished in Europe. As Goldhagen notes, ‘the Jews of Germany . . . wanted
nothing more than to be good Germans; the Jews of Eastern Europe felt no
prior enmity toward Germans . . . The Germans’ characterization of the Jews
and their beliefs about them were absolutely fantastical, the sort of beliefs that
ordinarily only madmen have of others’ (Goldhagen 1996: 412). This conflict
was one-sided, and so was the violence.6
Unilateralism is associated with inequality (Black 1998: 78–9), and it is most
extreme where inequality is greatest. In Australia, for instance, Aborigines
attacked white settlers when circumstances temporarily reduced the settlers’
organizational and technological superiority. Sometimes they gathered in large
groups to confront Europeans, and sometimes they attacked vulnerable set-
tlers by surprise (Reynolds 2006: 101–3, 105). Also, the Aborigines’ superior
bushcraft often prevented Europeans from pursuing them – to the extent that
fleeing Aborigines might even stop to make faces and yell at their adversaries
(Reynolds 2006: 106–7). Even European technology could be overcome once
the Aborigines learned its limitations. The muskets used in the early part of the
nineteenth century took minutes to reload, for example, and Aboriginal clans
might surround an isolated settler and try to provoke him into firing his gun,
after which they could attack a temporarily unarmed man. In the second half
of the century, however, whites were armed with revolvers and repeating rifles,
and the unilateralism of the settlers’ violence increased as Aboriginal attacks
became more difficult (Reynolds 2006: 104). In Bosnia, the Muslims’ numerical
advantage over Serbs within Bosnia limited the degree of inequality, though
the Serbs still had at least a 20:1 advantage in heavy weaponry (Sells 1996:
117). The Bosnian Muslims also had some degree of organization, and so the
Bosnian army was able to fight on occasion or even commit its own massacres.
The Rwandan genocide, the other case of limited unilateralism, was somewhat
different. Here violence by Tutsis against Hutus did not occur in the same place
as the anti-Tutsi genocide, but elsewhere where Tutsis were dominant. In
Burundi, for example, Tutsis controlled the military, and the military power of
Tutsi exiles in Uganda allowed them to invade Rwanda and later to inflict
violence against Hutus in areas they controlled. Here, the reciprocal elements
were due to the inconsistency in Hutu-Tutsi relations – where Hutus and Tutsis
might be dominant or subordinate at one time and place but not in another. In
the Round Valley and the Holocaust, however, inequality was extreme, and the
violence was more unilateral. The Yuki seem not to have had any of the
advantages the Aborigines had with respect to the settlers, and when they
finally fought back, their attacks were ineffective (Miller 1979: 72). Inequality
was even greater in the Holocaust, where the agents and allies of an extremely
powerful and organized state attacked mainly unarmed civilians with few
allies.
Ethnic liability
Liability refers to accountability for an offence, and the type of liability deter-
mines who must pay a debt, go to prison, or otherwise be held accountable
(Black 1998: 49; Senechal de la Roche 1996: 102). Social control may employ
individual liability, where only an alleged wrongdoer is accountable, or collec-
tive liability, where people are accountable based on their social characteristics
(Senechal de la Roche 1996: 103). Genocide targets people based on ethnicity,
and so it involves a type of collective liability that may be called ethnic liability.
Genocide is thus distinguished not only from lynchings, state executions, and
other forms of violence that punish only an alleged offender, but also from
violence that targets people based on political affiliation, sex, occupation,
social class, or some other non-ethnic social category. But the degree of ethnic
liability – the extent to which the violence is based on ethnicity and ethnicity
alone – varies from case to case, and so variation in ethnic liability also
distinguishes cases of genocide from one another.7
Ethnic liability involves a kind of indiscriminateness as well as a kind of
selectivity, and it varies along each of these dimensions. Extreme ethnic liabil-
ity is indiscriminate in that ethnicity alone determines liability, but in other
cases liability is more limited. Many genocides involve the targeting of only
certain segments of an ethnic group. For instance, it may be that only male
members of fighting age are killed, and in fact, men of ‘battle age’ have been
disproportionately the targets of most genocides (Jones 2004a).The indiscrimi-
nateness of killing may correlate with its intensiveness, but the two concepts
are logically and empirically distinct. A classic blood feud, for instance, is
indiscriminate, since any adult male from the opposing group may be killed.
And yet it has an extremely low degree of intensiveness: It involves only
individual killing (Black 2004b: 153). Indiscriminateness refers to who may be
a target, and the intensiveness of killing refers to the proportion of the targets
killed.
Much of the killing in Queensland and in the Round Valley was limited in its
indiscriminateness. In Queensland, for example, Native Police killed all of the
Aborigine men living on Hinchinbrook Island but left the women and children
(Palmer 2000: 51). In the Round Valley, women and children were also
spared – and taken to the nearby Indian reservation – in many of the massacres
led by the Eel River Rangers as well as those by less organized groups of
settlers. To some extent, this was official policy, as can be seen in the Rangers’
captain’s orders to his men to ‘. . . kill all the bucks they could find, and take the
women and children prisoners’ (Scott 1860: 23). The killing in Bosnia was also
low in its indiscriminateness. The attackers disproportionately focused on seg-
ments of the targeted groups instead of just killing anyone who happened to be
Muslim or Croat. In the attack on Kozarac, for example, the Serbs chose
prominent citizens to be brought forward and killed immediately (Battiata
1992: Hukanovic 1996: 88; Maass 1996: 38–9; Wesselingh and Vaulerin 2005:
43). There was also much more killing in the two concentration camps housing
mainly Muslim men.
In the Rwandan genocide and the Holocaust, ethnic liability was more
extreme. While in Rwanda the Hutu killers disproportionately targeted Tutsi
men (Jones 2004b), overall the genocide was extremely indiscriminate. In the
Holocaust, early on the victims were men – Eastern European Jewish men
killed by the SS Einsatzgruppen at the beginning of the Nazis’ war with the
Soviet Union in the summer of 1941. But shortly after this, the Nazis began
killing Jewish women and children as well (Dieckmann 2000; Snyder 2009).
In its pure form, ethnic liability is not only indiscriminate, it is also selective.
That is, members of an ethnic group are carefully distinguished from members
of other ethnic groups. Ethnic groups are characterized by a notion of common
descent (Weber 1978: 385–9), but since descent may be fictitious or unknown,
phenotypes, cultural characteristics, or behavioural characteristics are normally
used as markers of ethnicity (Van den Berghe 1981: 28).Where the selectivity of
genocide is extreme, the killers use such markers to identify members of the
targeted group and separate them from others. In such cases, ethnic sorting
precedes the killing. Where this kind of sorting is not present, however, ethnic
liability is less pure – less ethnic. The genocides of the Aborigines in Australia
and of the Yuki Indians in California, for example, involved a low degree of
selectivity. Certainly the killers targeted groups of Aborigines and Indians as
such, but these were groups living socially and physically apart from the settlers.
The killers went into the bush or into the mountains to find Aborigines or
Indians. They were not selecting victims living alongside another ethnic group.8
The killings of Muslims in Bosnia, Tutsis in Rwanda, and Jews in Europe, on
the other hand, were characterized by extreme ethnic selectivity. In Bosnia,
where small pockets of each ethnic group were distributed throughout the
republic (Mann 2005: 366), the attackers rounded up Muslims and Croats from
the heterogeneous population. Similarly, in Rwanda, Hutus and Tutsis lived in
the same locations, with several Hutu families typically surrounding each Tutsi
family (Prunier 1998: 249). The killers could not simply attack a village or
neighbourhood without first separating Tutsis from others. In many places,
they accomplished this by promising Tutsis protection and getting them to
gather in a single location. Throughout the country, then, schools, churches, and
community centres were the primary locations of mass killing (Lemarchand
2004: 408; Scherrer 2002: 111). Hutu militias also set up roadblocks to prevent
Tutsis from escaping, and here they would use various means to distinguish
Tutsis from Hutus. All Rwandans were required to carry identification cards
indicating their ethnicity (Des Forges 1999: 35–8), and so the Hutus at the
roadblocks would check for identification. Identification as a Tutsi would mean
certain death, but given that the cards could be falsified, the guards would also
look for physical features associated with Tutsis – such as straight noses and
thin lips. In some cases, then, even Hutus with genuine cards might be killed if
they looked enough like Tutsis (Prunier 1998: 249).
Ethnic selectivity was also extreme in the Holocaust. In the Lithuanian city
of Kovno, for example, many Jews lived among other Lithuanians, and so these
Jews had to be identified and isolated. During the first few weeks after the
Nazis invaded in June 1941, several thousand Jews were arrested and then
killed at an old military fort outside the city, and later the Nazis established a
Jewish ghetto in Vilijampole, where all 30,000 of Kovno’s Jews were confined
(Beinfeld 1997: 31; Ginaite-Rubinson 2005: 22–3; 48; Mishell 1998: 391; Tory
1990: 23–4). With the establishment of the ghetto, all of the city’s Jews were
now physically removed from others, and the Nazis then began a series of
larger-scale killing operations. By the end of 1941 half of Kovno’s Jewish
residents were dead.
As we have seen, the liability of genocide has two dimensions. Ethnic liabil-
ity is more indiscriminate as it extends to every member of the targeted ethnic
group, and ethnic liability is more selective when the killers engage in ethnic
sorting prior to the killing. Like other features of genocide, indiscriminateness
and selectivity may be explained with aspects of a conflict’s social geometry.
First, collective liability increases with social polarization (Senechal de la
Roche 1996: 116), so ethnic liability is more indiscriminate when the ethnic
groups involved in genocide are more socially distant and unequal. In the
Round Valley, for example, where genocidal expeditions often targeted Indian
men, relationships between Indians and whites were not completely polarized.
For example, some of the Yuki Indians lived on the ranches or on the Round
Valley’s reservation, and many of these worked for the whites as servants and
labourers (Carranco and Beard 1981: 60; Miller 1979: 47). The genocide was
directed toward the Yuki living in the mountains rather than these socially
closer Indians living nearby, but the presence of social ties between whites and
Indians also seems to have limited the killing beyond this. It meant that in
many cases the killers spared the women and children. Instead of killing them,
they brought them to the reservation, where they would be physically and
socially closer. Overall the status differences between the Indians and the
settlers were also not extreme on all dimensions, since the Indians outnum-
bered the settlers and since the settlers’ degree of organization was low. In the
Holocaust and the Rwandan genocides, however, and in other major cases of
genocide where liability is extremely indiscriminate, the aggressors were
highly organized and substantially outnumbered the targets.
The selectivity of genocide, the second dimension of ethnic liability, also

results from a particular pattern of group relations. Genocide is more selective
when ethnic groups are physically entangled but socially segmented. Genocide
may occur after socially distant groups come into contact, such as in the cases
in Australia and California, but here selectivity is weaker. Targeting is less
ethnically based, since ethnic sorting does not precede the killing. But compare
these with the Rwandan case, where as noted above, Hutus and Tutsis lived
together in the same villages and neighbourhoods. They were physically close
to one another, but despite this, ethnic divisions were rigid. Ethnic identity was
assigned at birth and unchangeable, and many sectors of Rwandan society
were organized along ethnic lines (Campbell 2009: 162). Social segmentation
was extreme, then, but so was physical closeness. And so for the genocide to
proceed, Tutsis first had to be set apart physically just as they were socially.
A continuum of genocide
The foregoing discussion identified the dimensions on which genocides vary

and the extreme values on each dimension (see Figure I). Now we can go
beyond simply examining each element separately. Our analysis also allows us
to construct an ideal type of genocide that can be employed to more easily
make sense of genocidal variation. Genocide in its ideal form involves inten-
sive, large-scale mass killing; it is extremely unilateral; and it targets members
Figure I: The elements of genocide
Element Definition Low value High value Geometry
Mass killing
Intensiveness Proportion of Killing combined Complete Immobility
targets killed. with non-lethal extermination.
sanctions
(expulsion, etc.)
Scale Time and Small, local Coordinated Organization
territory over massacres. national or
which the regional
killing operates. massacres.
Unilateralism Extent to which Some violence by No violence by Inequality
violence moves members of members of
in only one targeted group. targeted
direction. group.
Ethnic liability
Indiscriminateness Extent to Targets only a All members of Polarization
which ethnicity portion of an an ethnic
alone ethnic group group are
determines (men, elites, potential
liability. etc.). targets.
Selectivity Extent to which No sorting takes Sorting to Physical
individuals are place separate the entanglement,
distinguished beforehand. targets from social
by ethnicity. others. segmentation
of an ethnicity indiscriminately and carefully selects them out from others.

Hypergenocides, which have high values on all dimensions, closely approach
the ideal type. As we saw, the Holocaust not only had high values on every
dimension, but far exceeded even the Rwandan genocide in the scale of the
killing and many other factors.
Hypergenocides, where every feature that distinguishes genocide from
other phenomena is heightened, are the clearest instances of genocide. But
most genocides are not hypergenocides, just as most instances of violence
generally – as well as many other phenomena – are not extreme (Collins 2008;
Cooney 2009c: 592). Genocide in practice more commonly occurs where geno-
cide is in its minimal rather than maximal form. These protogenocides, at the
opposite end of a continuum of genocide, have low values on all of the
dimensions. In this form genocide is supplemented with other forms of vio-
lence; it occurs on a small scale; it is unilateral but has some reciprocal ele-
ments; and it targets a portion of an ethnic group through direct attacks not
preceded by sorting. Many of the genocidal expeditions by settlers against
Aborigines in Australia were protogenocides, since while they were unilateral,
ethnically based mass killings, they were low on all of these dimensions.
Since hypergenocides and protogenocides differ along a number of
theoretically important dimensions, they occur in different geometrical envi-
ronments. Hypergenocide, for example, occurs in response to continuous
deviant behaviour on the part of members of a low status ethnic group
against extremely high status, organized, and well-connected members of a
high status ethnic group in situations where these ethnic groups are physi-
cally entangled, extremely socially distant, extremely unequal, and extremely
immobile. In these cases, powerful agents of an authoritarian or totalitarian
state typically formulate grievances and gather support against members
of a stigmatized, disenfranchized, unorganized, and unarmed ethnic group
within their territory. In contrast, protogenocide occurs in response to spe-
cific instances of deviance on the part of members of a low status ethnic
group against ordinary members of a high status ethnic group in situations
where these ethnic groups are physically adjacent but not entangled and
where their social distance, inequality, and immobility are high but less
extreme due to ties between some members of each group, less asymmetry in
size or military technology (perhaps only in certain situations), and some
availability of repressive options other than killing. In these cases, the griev-
ances are formulated by smaller groups of people – sometimes settlers on
colonial frontiers who form groups to respond to offences by the native
inhabitants.
As seen in Figure II, hypergenocides and protogenocides are polar types –
opposite ends of a continuum of genocide – and so many cases will fall
somewhere in between. As we have seen, in Rwanda, Bosnia, and the Round
Valley, genocide was neither extreme nor low on all the dimensions. The
Figure II: A continuum of genocide
Protogenocide Hypergenocide
Queensland Round Valley Bosnia Rwanda Holocaust
Intensiveness Low Low Low High High

Scale Low Low High High High
Unilateralism Low High Low Low High
Indiscriminateness Low Low Low High High
Selectivity Low Low High High High
Figure III: Other cases of genocide
Nanj ing Dominican Republic
Intensiveness High High

Scale Medium Medium
Unilateralism Low High
Indiscriminateness High Low
Selectivity Low High
Rwandan genocide, close to hypergenocide in its intensiveness, scale, indis-

criminateness, and selectivity, nevertheless had warlike elements that made it
less unilateral. Conversely, the genocide in the Round Valley was high in
unilateralism but low on other dimensions. The Bosnian case was even more
mixed. Though large in scale and extreme in its selectivity, it was less intensive,
indiscriminate, and unilateral than an extreme case such as the Holocaust. It is
in examining these intermediate cases that the ideal typology is especially
useful. The highly variable social geometry of ethnic conflicts gives rise to
genocides varying in multiple ways along a number of important dimen-
sions, and the ideal typology gives us a way of analysing – and ultimately,
explaining – this variation.
Classifying other cases of genocide
Cases of genocide, of course, are more variable even than those we have
examined so far, but we can analyse any case based on its divergence from the
ideal type. Consider two additional cases: the 1937–38 Nanjing massacre and
the 1937 massacre of Haitians in the Dominican Republic. Each, like the
intermediate cases examined above, was highly genocidal in some respects but
less so in others (see Figure III).
In December 1937, after Japanese soldiers took control of the Chinese city
of Nanjing, they began killing the Chinese soldiers and civilians left in the city.
The soldiers raped and mutilated women and girls, usually before killing them,
and they employed sadistic methods of killing both men and women – includ-
ing disemboweling, crucifixion, mass incineration, and live burial (Chang 1997:
87–99). Overall, this genocide resulted in the deaths of more than 200,000, and
possibly as many as 400,000, of the 600,000 persons in the city at the time of the
occupation (Chang 1997: 100–3). This was a case extreme in its intensiveness
and indiscriminateness, reflecting the extreme social distance and inequality
between the aggressors and targets. The Chinese did outnumber the Japanese
soldiers, and while we would expect this to lessen the violence, overall the
organizational superiority of the Japanese seems to have enabled it. The
soldiers defending the city – poorly trained, lacking cohesion, and guided by
vacillating leaders – had attempted (largely unsuccessfully) to flee the city
prior to the Japanese attack, and half of the civilian population (including
many of the wealthy and resourceful members) had also fled (Chang 1997:
70–81). The organization of the attackers also enabled killing on a larger
scale – over a six week period throughout the city – than the killing expeditions
in Australia or California. Still, the scale was smaller than cases occurring
on a national or international scale. The medium scale of the genocide is
consistent with a medium level of organization. Though the killers were orga-
nized – members of the Japanese Army – the killing was not planned by the
Japanese government or orchestrated from the top and was even condemned
by one of the soldiers’ commanding officers (Chang 1997: 50–2). The unilater-
alism here was low. The overall conflict involved violence on both sides, and it
became completely unilateral only after the Japanese victory.And finally, there
was no selectivity such as we have seen in Bosnia, Rwanda, or in the
Holocaust. Without the physical entanglement of ethnic groups that occurred
in those cases, the Japanese had no need to sort people out by their ethnic
identities.
Consider also another case from 1937: the genocide against Haitians in the
north-western frontier of the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic
was a dictatorship under President Rafael Trujillo, who had come to power in
a 1930 coup. Trujillo and his cabinet members advocated a nationalist version
of modernization and sought to use (and expand) the state’s power to bring
about their goals (Turits 2002: 603–4). The frontier areas particularly con-
cerned them, and they considered the presence of Haitians near the border
with Haiti a ‘pacific invasion’ that threatened the Dominican nation. In the
event of an invasion launched by exiles from Haiti, they feared that the border
areas would allow for easy passage. They also thought of the Haitian-
Dominican culture that flourished on the frontier as backward, uncivilized, and
African. In particular, they saw the unconventional religious practices of those
on the border – such as their fanaticism and their practice of Voudou – as a
threat to the project of modernization and homogenization (Turits 2002: 599,
605). To deal with these grievances, hundreds of soldiers from the Dominican
army (along with some civilian reserves) killed somewhere from 10,000 to
20,000 Haitians during a five-day period in October of 1937 (Roorda 1996;
Turits 2002).
Here, conditions were conducive to genocide, and the killing was highly
genocidal in many ways. Although Dominicans and Haitians in the frontier
area were socially close – maintaining distinct identities but similar and
intermingled enough that they shared a common culture (Turits 2002:
594–8) – those who formulated the grievances and planned the genocide (state
officials) and those who carried out the killings (members of the Dominican
army) were extremely socially distant and superior outsiders. The worry about
an invasion from Haiti also meant they were unlikely to use expulsion as an
option, and so the situation was characterized by levels of social distance,
inequality,and immobility conducive to highly intensive and unilateral violence.
Unilateralism was especially extreme. The violence was not a response to
previous violence, and as Turits notes, for the targets ‘the genocidal rampage
appeared to come out of nowhere, like an act of madness’ (2002: 620). Nor did
the genocide provoke violence by Haitians or by the Haitian government.
Haiti’s president even prohibited public discussion of the massacre in an effort
to avoid conflict with the Dominican Republic (Turits 2002: 622).The organized
aggressors were also able to carry out a fairly large-scale genocide over a large
territory and over a period of several days. And the selectivity was high.
Dominicans and Haitians near the border were difficult to distinguish, and the
soldiers would employ local officials to point out Haitians so they could separate
them out from the Dominicans (Turits 2002: 618).This genocide was close to the
ideal type in many ways, then, but the indiscriminateness of ethnic liability was
low.They did not limit the killing to men or to elites, as is often the case, but they
did limit it so that only Haitians in the north-western frontier region – not those
throughout the rest of the country – were attacked. Of course, the issues that
gave rise to the killing had to do with Haitians in the border region, but we can
also explain why liability did not extend any further, even though large numbers
of Haitians lived in other areas of the country. It is because Haitians in other
parts of the country were socially closer to the aggressors. These Haitians were
migrant workers who worked on the sugar plantations, and their migration was
regulated by the government for the benefit of the sugar companies. These
workers,then,had interdependent relations with Dominicans in the interior and
with the regime itself (Roorda 1996: 304–6).
Comparing other typologies of genocide
Typologies of genocide simply offer different ways of distinguishing among

cases. Like definitions, they cannot be true or false, but may be more or less
useful. And like definitions, typologies are more useful when they are
applicable to actual cases and when they are theoretically based (cf. Cooney
and Phillips 2002: 78–80; Lenski 1994: 21; Senechal de la Roche 2004: 2).
Unfortunately, the incoherence of many typologies detracts from their utility.
For example, consider three typologies based on the motive of the
perpetrators. Chalk and Jonassohn (1990: 29) identify four types: genocide to
eliminate a real or potential threat, to spread terror among real or potential
enemies, to acquire economic wealth, or to implement a belief, a theory, or an
ideology. Similarly, Fein’s (1993: 28–30) typology consists of ideological,
retributive, developmental, and despotic genocide, and Smith’s (1987) of
retributive, institutional, utilitarian, monopolistic, and ideological genocide. But
as Straus (2001) notes, it is difficult to clearly apply these typologies even to the
major cases. For example, the Rwandan genocide was to eliminate a threat as
well as to implement an ideology; it was ideological as well as retributive
(Straus 2001: 369).
Several recent typologies avoid the problems of motivational typologies by
considering, as I do, variation in genocide itself. Melson (1992: 26), for
instance, distinguishes between massacre, partial genocide, and total genocide
according to the proportion of the group that is killed and the extent to
which group identity is destroyed. Goldhagen (2009: 290) likewise distin-
guishes ‘eliminationalist assaults’ based on the location (internal or external)
and nature (over territory or not) of the contest. Other typologies are
simpler and identify only one dimension of variation as especially significant.
Palmer (2000: 209–10) distinguishes between state genocides – those led and
carried out by the state – and societal genocides – those led and carried out
mainly by civilians. Similarly, Straus (2001: 369–70) identifies two types of
genocide, colonial genocide and revolutionary genocide, based on whether or
not they involve territorial invasion. I do not wish to criticize or replace
these typologies, which may be useful for various purposes. But what the
multiplicity of typologies suggests is that genocide varies along multiple
important dimensions, and an ideal typology is well-suited for examining
multiple dimensions simultaneously. Many of the variable aspects of geno-
cide I have identified even overlap with those identified by other typologies.
For example, Melson focuses on the amount of killing, which is captured by
the concepts of intensiveness, scale, and indiscriminateness. Palmer focuses
on the organization of the perpetrators, an independent variable in my
theory that is closely associated with the scale of genocide. And Straus’s
typology, based on the presence of territorial invasion, should correlate
closely to ethnic selectivity, which would be high in revolutionary but low in
colonial genocides. But though there is some overlap, the ideal typology pre-
sented here is not simply a composite of these others. Like the definition on
which it is based, it is informed by a general theory of violence and social
control. It therefore helps us not just to classify genocides, but to explain
them.
Conclusion
To understand and explain genocide, we must allow for variation. We must

view genocide as a matter of degree, as this typology allows us to do. For
example, while some scholars (e.g., Heinsohn 2000; Katz 1994; 2001; Rosenberg
1987; Rubenstein 2001) view the Holocaust as unique in some sense, we have
seen that the Holocaust was instead the extreme case on a continuum of
genocide – a hypergenocide characterized by an extreme degree of mass
killing, unilateralism, and ethnic liability. Different from other cases in degree
but not kind, the Holocaust was not unique, and neither is genocide. Genocide
is a form of social control with variable features, none unique or mysterious.
Like warfare, genocide involves mass killing. Like lynching, it is unilateral.
Like ethnic cleansing, it targets people based on their ethnicity. As these
features vary, they distinguish genocide from other forms of social control, and
they distinguish genocides from one another.And since their variation is partly
predictable with the pure sociology of social control, we can explain the
occurrence of genocides and the forms that they take.
(Date accepted: August 2011)
Notes
1. I thank Donald Black, Jason Manning, considerably. Hagan and Kaiser (2011a,
Justin Snyder, and the three anonymous 2011b), for example, argue that forced dis-
assessors for their helpful comments on placements, such as those currently occur-
earlier drafts. ring in Darfur, are genocidal according to
2. This is sometimes misunderstood in the UN definition of genocide, but Allen
discussions of definitions of genocide. For (2011) and Shaw (2011) disagree.
instance, Chalk and Jonassohn say they 4. This is not always the case, though. As
found it ‘necessary’ to define genocide as noted, intensiveness is related to other vari-
perpetrated by ‘a state or other authority’ in ables as well, so in some cases – especially
order ‘to deal with some cases in which the the more extreme cases – the killers may go
perpetrator was a local authority other than to a great deal of trouble to make sure their
the state’ (1990: 26). This implies that certain targets do not escape. During the Holocaust,
cases are ‘genocides’ independent of any for example, the Nazis often killed Jews
definition and that a definition must be for- rather than allowing them to escape when it
mulated to include them. But no particular was possible. Still, overall immobility was
definition of genocide is ‘necessary’ and no low in this case, as options for expulsion had
cases are inherently genocidal; they are already been exhausted or closed off. Prior
genocides if they are defined as such. to the war, Nazi policies encouraged Jewish
3. The UN definition of genocide is like- emigration, and 60 per cent of the Jewish
wise difficult to apply. It too requires an population in Germany left the country
intent to destroy, and because of this and during this time (Dawidowicz 1975: 191).
other elements – such as its ambiguity Even more would have left were it not for
about what actions constitute genocide – the difficulty of obtaining permission from
those applying the definition often disagree destination countries (Dawidowicz 1975:
189). Later, Nazis planned to deport Jews 6. But it was still not a case of absolute
from newly conquered territories to the unilateralism. Jews sometimes violently
Lublin region of Poland, but then war with resisted the Nazis, even when they had no
the Soviet Union made this impossible possibility of success (see, for example, Ein-
(Weitz 2003: 129). wohner 2003). Also, as Shaw points out,
5. Other factors were also conducive to many Jews ‘joined the war against the Nazis,
partisanship. For example, although the fact either in resistance groups or in Allied
that black policemen engaged in genocide armies’ (2007: 32). Unilateralism, like the
against other blacks may at first seem other aspects of genocide, is a matter of
inconsistent with the theory, Aborigines degree, and even in the most extreme cases,
who served in the Native Police were actu- there are still some reciprocal elements.
ally socially closer to their officers and to 7. Ethnicity itself is also variable – a
whites in general than to the Aborigines matter of degree. Naimark notes that politi-
they killed. This was due to the social char- cal groups or classes may be ‘ethnicized’
acteristics of Aboriginal societies and also (2010: 5). In such cases they begin to be
to the manner in which the Native Police treated as ethnic groups, as ‘invented
were recruited. Aborigines were socially nations’ (Naimark 2010: 29). For example,
close only to their kinsmen and near neigh- the kulaks, wealthy peasants in the Soviet
bours. They had no concept corresponding Union, were depicted by Soviet propaganda
to ‘Aborigine’ or even ‘Australia’, and as genetically inferior, and thus their rela-
distant Aborigines – especially those who tives and children were also treated as
spoke incomprehensible languages – were kulaks (Naimark 2010: 58–9).
normally treated as enemies responsible for 8. But killing is even less selective than
diseases and natural disasters (Reynolds this when aggressors kill others in the
1990: 80). And black troopers were process of killing their targets. In the Albig-
recruited from areas far away from the ensian crusade, for example, when Catholics
frontier precisely so they would have no massacred the inhabitants of Béziers –
sympathy for local clans (Reynolds 1990: where many of the Albigensian heretics
83). Any Aborigines they encountered on resided – they killed Catholics along with
the frontier were complete strangers differ- heretics. As Strayer (1990: 119) notes, an
ing in language and other cultural practices. apocryphal story, that the aggressors
At the same time, they were socially closer shouted, ‘Kill them all; God will know his
to whites. The Native Police were recruited own!’, accurately captures the killers’ mood.
from among the Aborigines living on the Indiscriminate violence may be less selective
fringes of white society, where the men still when people are attacked without
often worked for whites as unpaid labour- regard to any social characteristic at all, as in
ers and stockmen, and where the women cases of ‘running amok’, where people go to
often served as domestic servants or concu- a public place and begin indiscriminately
bines (Reynolds 1990: 74). killing people (Black 2011: 10).
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The British Journal of Sociology 2011 Volume 62 Issue 4

Genocide as a matter of degree1 bjos_1382 586..612

The failure to allow for variation, according to Stephan Fuchs,‘suffocates much

The pure sociology of genocide

Pure sociology is applicable to a range of behaviours, but it has been applied

definition of genocide is a variable aspect of social control associated with

Elements of an ideal type of genocide

destination for Muslims in Serb-controlled territories. It was easier to deport

Greater organization is also associated with strong partisanship. Third

The selectivity of genocide, the second dimension of ethnic liability, also

The foregoing discussion identified the dimensions on which genocides vary

Figure I: The elements of genocide

Element Definition Low value High value Geometry

of an ethnicity indiscriminately and carefully selects them out from others.

Figure II: A continuum of genocide

Queensland Round Valley Bosnia Rwanda Holocaust

Intensiveness Low Low Low High High

Figure III: Other cases of genocide

Nanj ing Dominican Republic

Intensiveness High High

Rwandan genocide, close to hypergenocide in its intensiveness, scale, indis-

Classifying other cases of genocide

Comparing other typologies of genocide

Typologies of genocide simply offer different ways of distinguishing among

To understand and explain genocide, we must allow for variation. We must

Studies in Comparative Genocide, New Collins, R. 2008 Violence: A Micro-

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