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The Complexity of Evil: Perpetration and Genocide

by Timothy Williams

Rutgers University Press, 2021
Paper: 978-1-9788-1429-5 | Cloth: 978-1-9788-1430-1 | eISBN: 978-1-9788-1431-8
Library of Congress Classification HV6322.7.W547 2020
Dewey Decimal Classification 304.663

ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC

ABOUT THIS BOOK
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.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
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.

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.”

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

"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."

— Kjell Anderson, author of Perpetrating Genocide: A Criminological Account

"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."

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

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cover

Series Page

Title Page

Dedication

Contents

List of Abbreviations��

Introduction��

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

Chapter 1. The Complexity of Evil: Introducing the Model

Vignette II. Sokong: A Coerced Killer with a Conscience

Chapter 2. Motivations

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

Chapter 3. Facilitative Factors

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

Chapter 4. Contextual Conditions

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

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

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

Conclusion��

Appendix: List of Interviewees��

Acknowledgments

Glossary

Notes��

References��

Index��

About the Author

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