Blood in the Village: A Local-Level Investigation of State Massacres

Christopher Michael Sullivan

Conflict Management and Peace Science, 2012, vol. 29, issue 4, 373-396

Abstract: Although policymakers, NGOs, and academics have all expressed interest in accounting for mass killing, it is still unclear why states perpetrate massacres against their citizens. The present article identifies how strategic incentives can motivate states to commit massacres in particular settings. The article contends that massacres are committed to pursue two strategic goals: threat removal and projecting state control over territory. This theory is tested using local-level data from Guatemala’s Commission for Historical Clarification. The results have significant implications for how we understand as well as attempt to reduce mass killing.

Keywords: civil war; genocide; human rights; mass killing; repression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0738894212449087 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:compsc:v:29:y:2012:i:4:p:373-396

DOI: 10.1177/0738894212449087

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Conflict Management and Peace Science from Peace Science Society (International)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().