Hat tip to the Australian Lowy Institute:
Last Wednesday Sydney University academic Ben Goldsmith presented to the Lowy Institute his research on forecasting genocides.

After examining data from the early 70s onward, Goldsmith and his fellow researchers found four key factors that determine countries at high risk of genocide: infant mortality, the incidence of previous genocides or 'politicides', the percentage of the population serving in the military, and the incidence of political assassination.
The paper is on:http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...act_id=2027396