Cycles of Mass Atrocity: Evidence from Sudan
Scott Straus, Professor
Political Science
Open. Apprentices needed for the fall semester. Enter your application online beginning August 21st. The deadline to apply is Monday, August 31st, 4pm.
A consistent finding in genocide and mass atrocity literature is that prior episodes predict future onsets, yet the causal mechanisms explaining why violence recurs remain theoretically underspecified. This project addresses that gap by developing four interlocking hypotheses: (1) accountability absence, where impunity enables recurrence; (2) armed group persistence, where perpetrating institutions retain capacity for violence; (3) structural atrocity motivation, where underlying conditions driving prior atrocities remain in place; and (4) weapons saturation, where arms abundance enables new actors to inflict harm. We build a dataset of mass atrocity cycles and test these hypotheses through the case of Sudan, comparing the 2003–2006 Darfur genocide — in which state-backed Janjaweed militias committed targeted killings against non-Arab populations — with the mass atrocities occurring in the civil war that began in 2023. Central to our analysis is the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary organization that emerged from the Janjaweed and is responsible for the ongoing atrocities. We trace the institutional lineage, fighter recruitment, officer structure, and training of both organizations and supplement this with an analysis of social media video content.
Role: Building a dataset of mass atrocity cycles
Supplementing data on the RSF commander structure
Analysis of social media video content
Qualifications: Interest in human rights, genocide, and/or African politics
Comfort with spreadsheets
Analysis of video content
Arabic speaking
Each of these are desirable but not required.
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Dinah Lawan, Ph.D. candidate
Hours: 3-5 hrs
Social Sciences