The Power of Local Ties: Popular Participation in the Rwandan Genocide

How do ordinary people come to commit genocide against their neighbors? Ethnicity-based approaches cannot explain the different pathways that lead to mass violence or the different forms that participation takes over time and place. In Rwanda, different processes and mechanisms led some to join in the carnage while others resisted. Utilizing Mark Granovetter's concept of “social embeddedness,” this article argues that social ties and immediate social context better explain the processes through which ordinary people came to commit mass murder in Rwanda. Leaders used family ties to target male relatives for recruitment into the killing groups, which were responsible for carrying out the genocide. Ties among members of the killing groups helped to initiate reluctant or hesitant members into committing violence with the group. Finally, ties of friendship attenuated murderous actions, leading killers to help save Tutsi in specific contexts. Which ties became salient depended on the context. In the presence of the killing group or authority(ies), low-level participants (a group I call “Joiners”) tended to go along with the violence. Alone, Joiners often made different choices. The findings in this article are based on data collected during nine months of fieldwork in two rural communities and two central prisons in Rwanda.