Genocide and Statistics

Update: If you came to this post looking for statistics related to Darfur, I recommend you read these two posts on how it is nearly impossible to accurately determine the number of deaths that have occurred: Death Estimates Inaccurate and Two GAO Reports

Update II: Read this

Update III (3/28/08):

How many people have died in Darfur? Two years ago, the U.N. estimated 200,000. But the man who gave that figure now says it's far too low to be accurate. Sudan has long said it's way too high.

A new mortality survey might settle the question, but the U.N. has no plans for one — they say they are too busy trying to help the living. Activist groups say Sudan's government doesn't want one.

UPDATE IV (4/22/07):

An estimated 300,000 people may have died in the 5-year conflict in Darfur, a dramatic increase over earlier estimates of 200,000, a top U.N. official said on Tuesday.

Sudan's U.N. ambassador Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem said the figure was grossly exaggerated.

U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs John Holmes mentioned the new estimate in a speech at a U.N. Security Council meeting on the conflict in the western Sudanese region.

"A study in 2006 suggested that 200,000 had lost their lives from the combined effects of the conflict. That figure must be much higher now, perhaps half as much again," Holmes said, according to a written text of his remarks.

ORIGINAL POST

Last week, International Studies Quarterly published a study by Matthew Krain, an Associate Professor of Political Science at the College of Wooster, examining "the effectiveness of military action on the severity of ongoing instances of genocide and polititcide."

According to the press release

The study reveals that only overt military interventions that explicitly challenge the perpetrator appear to be effective in reducing the severity of the brutal policies. Military support for targets, or in opposition to the perpetrators, alters the almost complete vulnerability of unarmed civilian targets. And these interventions that directly target the perpetrators were not, on the whole, found to make matters worse for those being attacked ... He finds that even military intervention against the perpetrator by a single country or international organization has a measurable effect in the "typical" case.

When a single international actor challenges the aggressor, the probability that the killings will escalate drops while the probability that the killings will decrease jumps. Each additional intervention by another international actor raises the chance of saving lives.

In the introduction to the study, Krain notes

Policy makers faced with situations like those in Rwanda or Bosnia, Kosovo or Darfur, are forced to rely on past experience with interventions in other types of internal conflicts, often with disastrous results. This study is a step toward a better understanding of the effectiveness of potential responses by the international community to genocides and politicides.

Krain goes on to examine various intervention methods of dealing with on-going genocides and politicides (the "impartial intervention model," the "witness model," the "bystander model," etc...) and notes that not one of them is capable of reducing the severity of such situations.

After conducting a statistical analysis of the various models, Krain concludes

Policy maker concerns that intervention on the behalf of target populations will escalate the killing appear to be unfounded.

The only overt military interventions that appear to be effective in reducing the severity of genocides or politicides are those that explicitly challenge the perpetrator

He then discusses his finding as they relate to Darfur, writing

Intervention against the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed within the first year of the genocide would likely have had a measurable effect on the severity [2003] of state-sponsored mass murder in the following year.

Kraine does not claim that military intervention is the "only" option. In fact, he notes that "policy makers have a range of options available to them in the face of an ongoing genocide or politicide" and that his study "only examines one of those options."

Keeping that in mind, it is hard to argue with Kraine's basic conclusion

If actors wish to slow or stop the killing in an ongoing instance of state-sponsored mass murder, they are more likely to be effective if they oppose the perpetrators of the brutal policy.