Research
Book Project
My current book project, Buffers Against Famine: Survival strategies in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, focuses on the strategies of survival during periods of mass violence. The central question driving this project is: what makes people more or less likely to survive during periods of mass violence and revolution? More specifically, I focus on those who were not directly targeted, but rather those who had the potential to become indirect victims, those who died as a result of policy choices. I do so through an in-depth study of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, emphasizing the experience of those populations who were put to work across the countryside in village cooperatives: those most at risk from famine, disease, or overwork. I find that those who were in communities that faced social repression, as well as economic control, were more likely to die from famine. I argue that the specific forms of social repression – particularly forced marriages and family separation – undermined traditional buffers against crisis in a community and made those populations more likely to die. The book builds on original interviews collected over a year of field research, as well as forensic data on mass grave sites across Cambodia, recorded testimonies and oral histories that have been collected by the on-going Khmer Rouge tribunal and civil society groups in Cambodia. The strategies for survival were based at the individual, family, and community level. While the book first focuses on the immediate context of the famine and forced labor conditions, it also includes strategies to exit (or flee) as part of the range of survival tools. The book builds a theory of survival that addresses individual, family, and community level factors in cases of mass atrocity and state violence.
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Cheoung Ek Genocide Memorial, Phnom Penh
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Articles and Book Chapters:
Married by the Revolution: Forced Marriage as a Strategy of Control in Khmer Rouge Cambodia (2020, Journal of Genocide Research):
This article asks how genocidal regimes select policies of social control and why they vary in implementation within a revolutionary movement. Using the case of forced marriage under the Khmer Rouge regime, I argue that regime ideology was used to make violence against civilians appropriate. I find that forced marriages of civilians were most frequent among targeted population groups that represented an internal threat and among populations living in highly productive economic regions. Forced marriage was a unique tool of sexual violence: unlike other wartime practices of sexual violence, these marriages were meant to be permanent. Both parties married together were civilians, coerced into matches by state agents, and enforced by armed militia members who monitored the couples’ behaviour. I find that the content of the regime’s ideology made forced marriages not only thinkable, but the only appropriate choice. Lastly, this article pushes back on the claim that highly ideological groups do not commit sexual violence against civilians, but rather the findings suggest that regime ideology made permissible new tools of sexual violence and shaped practices of violence perpetrated by the state on civilians.
“Atrocity Processes and Dynamics: Top-Down Strategy or Bottom-Up Escalation?" With Scott Straus. In Oxford Handbook of Atrocity Crimes eds. Barbora Hola, Hollie Nyseth Brehm, and Maartje Weerdesteijn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022):
This chapter emphasizes the meso-level dimensions of mass atrocity, which is illustrated through cases of genocide in Rwanda and Darfur, Sudan, and communist mass violence in Cambodia. This chapter asks how meso-level actors shape the patterns of violence during mass atrocity. In doing so, the authors offer three pathways through which meso-level actors can escalate, or restrain, violence. The three pathways are: first, top-down policies of violence that meso-level actors put into place; second, from-the-middle dynamics where meso-level actors escalate violence for their own independent interests; and third, information distortions by meso-level actors about the progress of national policies that lead to deaths.
This article asks how genocidal regimes select policies of social control and why they vary in implementation within a revolutionary movement. Using the case of forced marriage under the Khmer Rouge regime, I argue that regime ideology was used to make violence against civilians appropriate. I find that forced marriages of civilians were most frequent among targeted population groups that represented an internal threat and among populations living in highly productive economic regions. Forced marriage was a unique tool of sexual violence: unlike other wartime practices of sexual violence, these marriages were meant to be permanent. Both parties married together were civilians, coerced into matches by state agents, and enforced by armed militia members who monitored the couples’ behaviour. I find that the content of the regime’s ideology made forced marriages not only thinkable, but the only appropriate choice. Lastly, this article pushes back on the claim that highly ideological groups do not commit sexual violence against civilians, but rather the findings suggest that regime ideology made permissible new tools of sexual violence and shaped practices of violence perpetrated by the state on civilians.
“Atrocity Processes and Dynamics: Top-Down Strategy or Bottom-Up Escalation?" With Scott Straus. In Oxford Handbook of Atrocity Crimes eds. Barbora Hola, Hollie Nyseth Brehm, and Maartje Weerdesteijn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022):
This chapter emphasizes the meso-level dimensions of mass atrocity, which is illustrated through cases of genocide in Rwanda and Darfur, Sudan, and communist mass violence in Cambodia. This chapter asks how meso-level actors shape the patterns of violence during mass atrocity. In doing so, the authors offer three pathways through which meso-level actors can escalate, or restrain, violence. The three pathways are: first, top-down policies of violence that meso-level actors put into place; second, from-the-middle dynamics where meso-level actors escalate violence for their own independent interests; and third, information distortions by meso-level actors about the progress of national policies that lead to deaths.
Research in Progress:
Repertoires of Coercion in Mass Violence: A Framework from the Cambodian Genocide
In instances of mass violence, perpetrating regimes engage in a range of practices, from exterminatory (lethal) violence to extra-lethal violence to non-lethal violence or non-violent coercion. While lethal violence has received much careful attention, the emphasis on extermination makes other forms of violence more puzzling. The question becomes not only why do they kill, but also why and when do regimes choose not to kill? To address this question, I use an in-depth case study of the Cambodian genocide to develop a typology of coercion. The practices used constitute a repertoire of coercion that includes both explicit violence and repressive measures that were used to commit atrocity crimes. Within this repertoire, I conceptualize three broad categories of coercion: 1) tools of control, 2) tools of expropriation, and 3) tools of social engineering. It is the third category in particular that is distinct and critical for a discussion of genocidal regimes. I use this typology to organize and analyze the repertoires of violence used by the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia as a way to expand the discussion of tools and strategies of mass killing. While the paper draws primarily on one case, it is an important one to demonstrate the range of tools that regimes use in service of their political and ideological aims. Beyond simply expanding on discussions of the tools of violence used in periods of mass violence, this framework can serve to disentangle the logics of coercion that leads to multiple, at times competing or contradictory, strategies of violence. This approach enables analysis of multilayered strategies of violence, it presents a framework to approach the complex tools of coercion and their relationship to the overarching aims of the regime.
A Logic of Forced Labor During Mass Atrocity: Evidence from Cambodia
This paper compares strategies of direct and indirect violence in the perpetration of mass atrocity. It asks: why would a regime use strategies of indirect violence - causing deaths through man-made famine, droughts, or epidemics - during periods of mass atrocity? I argue that economic interests make strategies of indirect violence appropriate. In this paper, I use a case study of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge (1975-1979) to explain the variation in famine deaths and direct execution. Despite the uniform eliminationist ideology that underpinned the regime, there was wide variation in the ways that population groups were targeted. I find that indirect violence was more likely in areas where the state had higher crop yields, which created an incentive not to execute undesirable populations groups because they became a necessary labor force. Through this case study, I demonstrate that the logic by which a regime governs during periods of mass atrocity can be used as a strategy of violence against civilians. Further, this paper argues that indirect violence - man-made famine, droughts, or epidemics - can be used strategically alongside more traditionally studied forms of direct violence.
Autocratic Consolidation and the Limits of Hybrid Tribunals: Domestic politics and the limits of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia
Authoritarian backsliding has accelerated in Cambodia, particularly after the 2013 national elections. One of the primary avenues through which the regime has consolidated power has been through the politicization of the legal system and a shift from rule of law to rule by law. The acceleration of authoritarian backsliding after 2013 was a key turning point for the legal system, and, as I argue in this paper, had a chilling effect on the internationally-led Khmer Rouge Tribunal (the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia or ECCC) as well. The ECCC began its work in 2006 to try the senior leadership of the Khmer Rouge regime for genocide and crimes against humanity. By December 2021, the court issued terminations to the remaining cases, after convicting only 3 individuals. While the convictions are important, and groundbreaking in their own right, the ECCC was designed in part to socialize Cambodian lawyers into international legal norms. However, the domestic political context has instead served to limit the scope of investigations of the hybrid tribunal. The issue is not that the court is ineffective, or that international law is only what states make of it, but rather that the expansion of the tribunal was subject to the same political dynamics - autocratic backsliding- as the domestic legal system. Through this case, this paper demonstrates that domestic politics can shape the reach of international institutions, despite the aims of using such institutions to socialize domestic actors into international norms.
(drafts of working papers available by request)
Repertoires of Coercion in Mass Violence: A Framework from the Cambodian Genocide
In instances of mass violence, perpetrating regimes engage in a range of practices, from exterminatory (lethal) violence to extra-lethal violence to non-lethal violence or non-violent coercion. While lethal violence has received much careful attention, the emphasis on extermination makes other forms of violence more puzzling. The question becomes not only why do they kill, but also why and when do regimes choose not to kill? To address this question, I use an in-depth case study of the Cambodian genocide to develop a typology of coercion. The practices used constitute a repertoire of coercion that includes both explicit violence and repressive measures that were used to commit atrocity crimes. Within this repertoire, I conceptualize three broad categories of coercion: 1) tools of control, 2) tools of expropriation, and 3) tools of social engineering. It is the third category in particular that is distinct and critical for a discussion of genocidal regimes. I use this typology to organize and analyze the repertoires of violence used by the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia as a way to expand the discussion of tools and strategies of mass killing. While the paper draws primarily on one case, it is an important one to demonstrate the range of tools that regimes use in service of their political and ideological aims. Beyond simply expanding on discussions of the tools of violence used in periods of mass violence, this framework can serve to disentangle the logics of coercion that leads to multiple, at times competing or contradictory, strategies of violence. This approach enables analysis of multilayered strategies of violence, it presents a framework to approach the complex tools of coercion and their relationship to the overarching aims of the regime.
A Logic of Forced Labor During Mass Atrocity: Evidence from Cambodia
This paper compares strategies of direct and indirect violence in the perpetration of mass atrocity. It asks: why would a regime use strategies of indirect violence - causing deaths through man-made famine, droughts, or epidemics - during periods of mass atrocity? I argue that economic interests make strategies of indirect violence appropriate. In this paper, I use a case study of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge (1975-1979) to explain the variation in famine deaths and direct execution. Despite the uniform eliminationist ideology that underpinned the regime, there was wide variation in the ways that population groups were targeted. I find that indirect violence was more likely in areas where the state had higher crop yields, which created an incentive not to execute undesirable populations groups because they became a necessary labor force. Through this case study, I demonstrate that the logic by which a regime governs during periods of mass atrocity can be used as a strategy of violence against civilians. Further, this paper argues that indirect violence - man-made famine, droughts, or epidemics - can be used strategically alongside more traditionally studied forms of direct violence.
Autocratic Consolidation and the Limits of Hybrid Tribunals: Domestic politics and the limits of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia
Authoritarian backsliding has accelerated in Cambodia, particularly after the 2013 national elections. One of the primary avenues through which the regime has consolidated power has been through the politicization of the legal system and a shift from rule of law to rule by law. The acceleration of authoritarian backsliding after 2013 was a key turning point for the legal system, and, as I argue in this paper, had a chilling effect on the internationally-led Khmer Rouge Tribunal (the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia or ECCC) as well. The ECCC began its work in 2006 to try the senior leadership of the Khmer Rouge regime for genocide and crimes against humanity. By December 2021, the court issued terminations to the remaining cases, after convicting only 3 individuals. While the convictions are important, and groundbreaking in their own right, the ECCC was designed in part to socialize Cambodian lawyers into international legal norms. However, the domestic political context has instead served to limit the scope of investigations of the hybrid tribunal. The issue is not that the court is ineffective, or that international law is only what states make of it, but rather that the expansion of the tribunal was subject to the same political dynamics - autocratic backsliding- as the domestic legal system. Through this case, this paper demonstrates that domestic politics can shape the reach of international institutions, despite the aims of using such institutions to socialize domestic actors into international norms.
(drafts of working papers available by request)