Genocide and Political Mass Murder

"Between the 1950s and 1980s the term 'genocide' languished almost unused by scholars". During the later 1980s and 1990s genocide studies began to emerge as an interdisciplinary field focusing on man-made disasters that did not fit the definitions found in the existing conflict literature. The Armenian genocide was mainly the province of ethnic Armenians, who, when some brave souls compared their genocide to the Holocaust, were chastised by the advocates of uniqueness. Today many post-Holocaust genocides and political mass murders have been carried out by authoritarian regimes that espouse such exclusionary ideologies. The beginning point for general theory is political upheaval, a concept that captures the essence of the structural crises and societal pressures that are preconditions for authorities' efforts to eliminate entire groups. Risk assessment identifies countries and situations with substantial potential for genocide and/or political mass murder. The goal of every genocide scholar is to prevent future genocides and political mass murders.