My dissertation research centered on the different patterns of pogrom violence that emerge from different types of political order—in particular, the relationship between state support for and the base of social support for pogrom organizers. Drawing on within-case analysis of pogrom episodes in Nazi Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom, I found that different types of political order lead pogrom organizers to target groups with different relationships to organizers’ key constituents. I used spatial regression analysis of novel historical data to explain why pogroms result in group-selective violence in some locations, but not others. I focused on four archetypal cases: (1) Kristallnacht, in Nazi Germany in November 1938; (2) La Matanza, against the Mexican population of the Lower Rio Grande Valley, in 1915; (3) the pogrom against the Black population of East St. Louis, IL, in 1917; and (4) the anti-Caribbean violence in the London neighborhood of Notting Hill, in 1958. My full dissertation is accessible via ProQuest here.
My research has been published or is forthcoming in a variety of academic journals, including Comparative Politics, Journal of Peace Research, Genocide Studies and Prevention, International Journal of Transitional Justice, and multiple edited volumes. I have received external grants for my research from the National Science Foundation, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and the American Political Science Association.
Below is a list of my academic, policy-oriented, and media publications, organized reverse-chronologically. If you’re working on these issues as a scholar, policymaker, practitioner, or activist, and want to collaborate, please reach out at daniel.solomon18@gmail.com.
Academic publications
Forth. Van Nostrand, Rachel, Alex Braithwaite, and Daniel Solomon. “The Correlates of Concentrated Cruelty: Government Use of Concentration Camp Systems since 1945” (accepted with revisions at Journal of Peace Research)
2024 Donine, Tallan, Daniel Solomon, and Lawrence Woocher. “Lessons Learned: Obstacles to Inference and Synthesis in Atrocity Prevention Research,” Genocide Studies and Prevention, vol. 18, no. 1 (2024), 17 – 36, https://doi.org/10.5038/1911-9933.18.1.1956
2024 Scott, Jamil, Daniel Solomon, and Kelebogile Zvobgo, “Historical Violence and Public Attitudes Toward Justice: Evidence from the United States,” International Journal of Transitional Justice (2024), 1 – 25, https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijad034
2024 Gillooly, Shauna, Daniel Solomon, and Kelebogile Zvobgo. “Co-Opting Truth: Explaining Quasi-Judicial Institutions in Authoritarian Regimes,” Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 46, no. 1 (2024), 67 – 97, https://doi.org/10.1353/hrq.2024.a918540
2024 Mampilly, Zachariah and Daniel Solomon. “Contingent Civilians: Agency and Action in Mass Atrocity Contexts.” In Civilian Protective Agency in Violent Settings: A Comparative Perspective, edited by Jana Krause, Emily Paddon-Rhoads, Juan Masullo, and Jennifer Welsh. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192866714.003.0011
2023 Braun, Robert and Daniel Solomon. “Popular Hatreds and the Spread of Kristallnacht Violence: Evidence from Children’s Stories,” Annales de démographie historique, vol. 1, no. 145 (2023), 49 – 72 (non-DOI link)
2022 Solomon, Daniel. “Finding Our Finches: Paradigmatic-Case Research in Political Science.” Qualitative and Multi-Method Research, vol. 20, no. 2 (2022), 1 – 8, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7140092
2020 Balcells, Laia and Daniel Solomon. “Violence, Resistance, and Rescue during the Holocaust.” Comparative Politics, vol. 53, no. 1 (2020), 161 – 180, https://doi.org/10.5129/001041520X15863824603010
2023 Solomon, Daniel. “Pogrom Violence and Visibility during Kristallnacht: Lessons for Social Science Research about the Holocaust.” In Politics, Violence, Memory – The New Social Science of the Holocaust, edited by Jeffrey Kopstein, Jelena Subotic, and Susan Welch. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, https://doi.org/10.7591/cornell/9781501766749.003.0004
2019 Solomon, Daniel. “The Black Freedom Movement and the Politics of the Anti-Genocide Norm in the United States, 1951 – 1967.” Genocide Studies and Prevention, vol. 13, no. 1 (2019), 130 – 43, https://doi.org/10.5038/1911-9933.13.1.1609
Policy publications
2023 (with Tallan Donine and Madeleine MacLean) “Climate Change, Response, and Mass Atrocities,” US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC (link)
2023 (with Tallan Donine) “Social Media, Mass Atrocities, and Atrocity Prevention,” US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC (link)
2022 (with Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide) Tools for Atrocity Prevention project, https://preventiontools.ushmm.org/, US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC
2020 (with Zachariah Mampilly, Anushani Alagarajah, Dharsha Jegatheeswaran, Nyathon H. Mai, and Congo Research Group) “The Role of Civilians and Civil Society in Preventing Mass Atrocities,” US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, July 2020 (link)
2017 “Evaluating Counterfactual US Policy Action in Syria, 2011 – 2016: A Review of Empirical Evidence from Related Cases,” US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC (link)
2016 (with Otto Saki and Lawrence Woocher) “Scenarios of Repression: Preventing Mass Atrocities in Zimbabwe,” US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC (link)
2016 (with Richard Gowan and Lawrence Woocher) “Preventing Mass Atrocities: An Essential Agenda for the Next UN Secretary-General,” US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC (link)
Media publications
2020 (with Jewel Tomasula) “Contract Personalis: How Georgetown’s Graduate Workers Organized to Win,” The Forge (link)
2018 “The Country Club,” The New Republic (link)
2018 (with Aliza Luft) “How dangerous is it when Trump calls some immigrants ‘animals’?,” Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog (link)
2016 “A Lost Boy in Louisville: One Refugee’s Story,” Dissent (link)
2016 “The Many Trials of a Nazi War Criminal,” The New Republic (link)
2015 “No Country for Rich Men,” The New Republic (link)
2014 “Between Israel and Social Democracy: Tony Judt’s Jewishness,” Dissent (link)
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