M.MAS 1/12/17 In Myanmar, all the warning signs of mass violence certainly appear to be present. 12 And there has indeed been awful violence, in the form of both riots and the slow burn of discrimination and systematic injustice. But the many instances in which the worst-case scenario does not transpire compel us to ask: what went right? This is the question we ask of four specific cases, which we believe highlight the interplay of competing—conflicting—interests in which collective violence was a potential outcome that did not eventuate. Examining as best we can how these cases unfolded—what went right—has much to teach us about how violence can happen in Myanmar, and how it can be prevented. There is, of course, a legitimate question that always plagues examination of any counterfactual: perhaps violence in these cases was never going to occur, not for the reasons we discuss below but because there was never the potential to begin with. Perhaps we have simply incorrectly assessed the original level of risk or missed key intervening variables. One way of addressing this concern is to use the “possibility principle” proposed by Mahoney and Goertz for studying such cases. 13 Certainly, in these four cases, the warning signs identified by available theories were all there. And the people we spoke with about these cases expressed their assessments in stronger terms: to them, larger scale violence seemed probable. Most of the research into these case studies was conducted during September-December 2015. Research consisted of formal, audio-recorded interviews with a small number of individuals directly involved and informal inquiries with other residents of the local area. This research was difficult because it took place during the period immediately surrounding Myanmar’s national elections in November 2015, when issues of ethnicity and religion were particularly tense. It was also complicated by the fact that some of those we spoke with expressed concern that it would be unhelpful, even dangerous, to highlight their efforts. In some cases, the issues are not yet resolved. In others, those involved may hold different versions of events and presenting a singular narrative of the case risks generating new conflict. Time also presented an obstacle. Where incidents were recent, associated tensions were still fresh; where they were not recent inquiries risked raising new suspicions. For these reasons, we have withheld more detailed information about the cases, including their precise dates and locations, out of deference to the conflict context in Myanmar. In doing this we have sought to obscure the details of the cases so that readers could imagine them as having occurred in multiple different areas—that is, so it is not possible to definitively and exclusively link our description to events in a single location. At the same time, we have tried to avoid presenting an overly confident assessment of each case. The studies are partial—there is much about the incidents that we do not know and never will. Brass has noted the multivalent nature of collective violence—one person’s personal dispute may be another’s communal affront may be another’s career opportunity. 14 In another context, Michael Taussig has commented on the “epistemic murk” inherent to large scale violence, where fact and fiction can merge and mutually reinforce one another, creating real stakes for those experiencing violence and vexing scholars’ attempts 12 For example, the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC listed Myanmar as among the highest risks for future mass atrocity, based on an early warning tool using such criteria. See: http://www.ushmm.org/confront-genocide/how-to-prevent-genocide/early-warning-project. The International State Crime Initiative at Queen Mary University of London, meanwhile, has used the criteria developed by Daniel Feierstein to evaluate the risk for genocide in Myanmar, concluding that it has reached the fourth stage of a six-stage process. See Penny Green, Thomas MacManus, and Alicia de la Cour Venning, “Countdown to Annihilation: Genocide in Myanmar” (London: International State Crime Initiative, 2015), 22–23. 13 Mahoney and Goertz propose a “possibility principle,” by which counterfactual cases are valid for comparative study when assessment according to existing theory and specialists holds that the outcome under study was possible. See, James Mahoney and Gary Goertz, “The Possibility Principle: Choosing Negative Cases in Comparative Research,” American Political Science Review null, no. 4 (November 2004): 653–669, doi:10.1017/S0003055404041401. 14 Paul R. Brass, Theft of an Idol: Text and Context in the Representation of Collective Violence (Princeton University Press, 1997). 4/24