The Complexity of Evil: Perpetration and Genocide

by Timothy Williams

Overview

Why do people participate in genocide? Timothy Williams presents an interdisciplinary model that shows how complex and diverse, but also how ordinary and mundane most motivations for participating in genocide are. The book draws on empirical examples from the Holocaust and Rwanda and introduces new data from interviews with perpetrators of genocide in Cambodia.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781978814295
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	12/18/2020
Series:	Genocide, Political Violence, Human Rights Series
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

TIMOTHY WILLIAMS is a junior professor of insecurity and social order at the Bundeswehr University Munich in Munich, Germany. His work has won awards from the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the German Peace Psychologist Association, and Marburg University. He is the coeditor, with Susanne Buckley-Zistel, of Perpetrators and Perpetration of Mass Violence: Action, Motivations and Dynamics.
 

Table of Contents

List of Abbreviations ix

Introduction 1

Vignette I Chandara: A Fearful Volunteer Enters the Tiger Zone 37

Chapter 1 The Complexity of Evil: Introducing the Model 39

Vignette II Sokong: A Coerced Killer with a Conscience 59

Chapter 2 Motivations 61

Vignette III Sokphary: A Female Unit Leader with a Sense of Responsibility for Her Subordinates 125

Chapter 3 Facilitative Factors 127

Vignette IV Sopheak: An Interrogator Searching to Unearth Enemy Strings 165

Chapter 4 Contextual Conditions 167

Vignette V Sokha: A Child Guard the Regime Turned On 187

Chapter 5 Diversity, Complexity, Scope: Discussing the Model and Its Empirical Application 189

Vignette VI Ramy: A Garment Worker Participating in the Evacuation of Phnom Penh 209

Conclusion 211

Appendix: List of Interviewees 217

Acknowledgments 221

Glossary 223

Notes 225

References 233

Index 259

Editorial Reviews

Confronting the most challenging moral and historical questions in our field, The Complexity of Evil is exceptionally insightful and wise. Based upon extensive research and deep thought, this book is also remarkably accessible. Williams never loses sight of the human implications of his study, and has made a pathbreaking contribution.” 
 

author of To Kill a People: Genocide in the Twentieth Century - John Cox

"The Complexity of Evil is a thorough and systematic exploration of genocide perpetration that that marries conceptual precision with a nuanced exploration of the Cambodian Genocide and other case studies. In perhaps his greatest contribution, Williams avoids reproducing conventional wisdom by thoughtfully exploring the complexities of perpetrator motivations in each context."
 

author of Perpetrating Genocide: A Criminological Account - Kjell Anderson

"This timely book—grounded in extensive qualitative fieldwork in Cambodia and comparison with the Holocaust and the 1994 Rwandan genocide—offers rich insights for the fields of perpetrator studies and genocide studies. Williams’s complexity of evil model helps us better understand the personal circumstances through which people become perpetrators, while acknowledging the potential for them to simultaneously be victims, bystanders, rescuers, and so on."
 

author of Negotiating Genocide in Rwanda: The Politics of History - Erin Jessee

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