Kate Cronin-Furman, Ph.D.

kate_cronin-furman@hks.harvard.edu

Harvard University

Country: United States (Massachusetts)

Twitter

Website

Research Interests

Human Rights

Political Violence

International Law & Organization

Mass Atrocities

Genocide

Ethnic Politics

Transitional Justice

Countries of Interest

Sri Lanka

Congo, Democratic Republic of the (Zaire)

Myanmar

Publications:

Journal Articles:

(2018) Ethics Abroad: Fieldwork in Fragile and Violent Contexts, PS: Political Science and Politics

As the volume of field-based research on fragile or violent contexts increases, it is hard to ignore the fact that such settings pose challenges that are not present elsewhere. Access to new political spaces in which to answer pressing social science questions, the availability of cheap labor, the ease of access to powerful figures, and the excitement of “the field” attract social scientists to these settings. However, they often constitute permissive environments in which researchers can engage in conduct that would be considered deeply problematic at home. Based on extended research in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia and interviews with social science researchers, this paper explores and critically assesses research practices employed by foreign academics in these contexts.

(2013) Managing Expectations: International Criminal Trials and the Prospects for Deterrence of Mass Atrocity, International Journal of Transitional Justice

Despite high hopes that the proliferation of accountability mechanisms represents progress toward the maintenance of international peace and security, claims about the ability of international criminal prosecutions to prevent future atrocities remain largely unexamined. Criminal deterrence depends on the certainty and severity of punishment, and the absence of "overwhelming incentives" to offend. This article surveys social science findings about the logic of mass atrocity commission and concludes that international prosecutions are too infrequent and the punishments too mild to affect the decision calculus of perpetrators who use violence against civilians for tactical advantage.

Media Appearances:

Newspaper Quotes:

(2017) Washington Post

“These are women who had joined an armed movement because of their political ideals,” said Kate Cronin-Furman, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School who studies human rights and mass atrocities. “And they were being sent to learn cake-making.”

(2017) New York Times

“We can talk about responsibility to protect, we can talk about living in an age of human rights, but this is a system of states,” said Kate Cronin-Furman, a Harvard University fellow who studies mass atrocities. “And states have privileges and rights that are baked into the international system. It’s hard to generate the will or momentum to impinge upon that.”

(2017) New York Times

Kate Cronin-Furman, a fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government who studies mass atrocities, said that when nations are defined around a majority ethnic group, that can lead to a sense of siege — a belief that majority status needs to be protected, because if it shrinks, the claim of the majority on the nation could as well.

(2017) New York Times

That election “resuscitated Sri Lanka's democratic institutions after an administration that consolidated power in the hands of the president's family, undermined the independent judiciary and brutalized civil society,” said Kate R. Cronin-Furman, a fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

(2017) New York Times

“For the court, I continue to think this is not going to mean very much,” said Kate Cronin-Furman, a human rights lawyer and postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

(2017) The Diplomat

While agreeing that the requirement to prove genocidal intent makes it far more complex in comparison to crimes against humanity, which simply requires that the acts be committed in a widespread or systematic way, mass atrocity scholar Kate Cronin-Furman said there were grounds to “accuse Burma of genocide.”

Blog Posts:

(2017) Slate

Human rights advocates are too quick to use the G-word to describe mass atrocities. But in the case of the Rohingya, it applies.

(2017) Foreign Policy

We've never known more about oncoming atrocities, but are still mostly helpless to stop them.

(2017) Al Jazeera

UN Peacekeepers: Keeping the Peace or Preventing It?

(2017) Monkey Cage

Are Sri Lankan officers ordering soldiers to sexually assault Tamil detainees?