Common themes or targets of research in genocide studies include: the history of genocide; the factors that contribute to it; the process by which genocide unfolds; the role of different actors within that process, including those of perpetrators, victims, witnesses, bystanders, rescuers and resisters; the role of external third parties who may choose to intervene, permit, prevent, facilitate, or ignore genocide; and the debate over the definition of the term itself.

The Genocide Studies Program has contributed to these discussions in many ways.  GSP Director Ben Kiernan did so in his 2007 book, Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur (Yale University Press), as did former GSP Fellow Adam Jones in his multi-edition Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction (2006, 2009).