Complexity of Evil

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.

“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)

• ContentsList of Abbreviations Introduction   Vignette 1 Chandara: a fearful volunteer enters the tiger zone         1          The complexity of evil – introducing the model       Vignette 2 Sokong: a coerced killer with a conscience         2          Motivations    Vignette 3 Sokphary: a female unit leader with a sense of responsibility for her subordinates       3          Facilitative factors     Vignette 4 Sopheak: an interrogator searching to unearth enemy strings     4          Contextual conditionsVignette 5 Sokha: a child guard the regime turned on          5          Diversity, complexity, scope – discussing the model and its empirical application Vignette 6 Ramy: a garment worker participating in the evacuation of Phnom Penh          Conclusion     Appendix: List of interviewees          Acknowledgments     Glossary         Bibliography  Index