Does Type of Violence Matter for Interventions to Mitigate Mass Atrocities?

Abstract

Abstract Preventing and mitigating mass atrocities is a critical challenge in international security. But international interventions to stop mass atrocities have met with mixed success, and the academic literature offers limited guidance on how to improve this record. We argue that more attention must be paid to the nature of violence, specifically whether violence targets identity groups as such or political opponents of the perpetrator more broadly. Using Krain's (2017) data on interventions and mass atrocities, we test for heterogeneous effects of interventions by violence type. We find that while antiperpetrator military interventions can reduce the severity of identity-based violence, nonmilitary actions have negligible effects. By contrast, in cases of politicide, “naming and shaming” is effective, while military intervention is not; neutral and properpetrator military interventions and economic sanctions are ineffective regardless of violence type. We conclude that intervention strategies should be more narrowly tailored on the basis of violence type.