ABSTRACT
The useful thing about systemic explanations is their ability to relate particular events to more general dynamics. Beneath the surface of every genocide - each unique in its own way, each comprising thousands or millions of individuals' unique experiences. The system perspective is still not very well developed in sociology; in fact, it's in its infancy. In genocide studies, the influence of conservative systems thinking appears whenever genocide is understood as the product of social breakdown. A riot or even a massacre can be relatively spontaneous, but genocide takes time, planning, sustained effort, often meticulous coordination. It takes tremendous resources, which have to be mobilized from somewhere. Much of what happens in genocide involves a repurposing of already established social practices: military discipline, bureaucratic planning, civic duty, commercial transactions, and so on. More sophisticated liberal analyses avoid the traps of this particular ethnocentric moralizing, but still run up against the deeper limitations of agential thinking.
