This document summarizes a presentation on perpetrators of mass violence and genocide. It discusses paradigm shifts in understanding perpetrators from innate evil to considering situational and dispositional factors. It presents models of perpetrator typologies and the evolution of understanding collective violence. It discusses how ordinary people can commit atrocities through cultural worldviews, social learning processes, and the construction of "the other". It argues that understanding perpetrator behavior requires considering a "grey zone of complexity" and interaction between individuals and systems.

1. Dr. Jekyll’s Potion, into the grey zone of evil?
Dr. Jekyll’s Potion, into the grey zone of evil?
CREA Theater │ 25 maart 2010 │ Christophe Busch

2. Dr. Jekyll’s Potion │ into the grey zone of evil?
CREA Theater │ 25 maart 2010 │ c.busch

3. Dr. Jekyll’s Potion │ into the grey zone of evil?
CREA Theater │ 25 maart 2010 │ c.busch
Paradigm shifts in perpetrator research
2010 - …
Mad or Bad model
Innate evil
Pathological disturbance
Situation vs disposition
Situational forces (conformity,
obedience, …)
Dispositional forces (attitude,
personality, …)
Mechanized crime
Murderous bureaucracy
Machinery of destruction
Typologies &
evolutionary based models
‘40 – ’50 ’60 – ‘80 ’90 – …

4. Dr. Jekyll’s Potion │ into the grey zone of evil?
CREA Theater │ 25 maart 2010 │ c.busch
TYPOLOGIES (gathering specimen)
Duality in explanations
Mad or bad hypothesis Ordinary men
Intentionalism Functionalism
Center Periphery
Disposition Situation
Mono-causal Multi-causal
On the origins of collective violence

5. Dr. Jekyll’s Potion │ into the grey zone of evil?
CREA Theater │ 25 maart 2010 │ c.busch
How do ordinary people commit genocide and mass killing?
Ultimate influences:
The evolution of Human Nature
Proximate influence:
Cultural
Construction of worldview
(1) Collectivistic Values
(2) Authority Orientation
(3) Social Dominance
Proximate influence:
Psychological
Construction of the ‘Other’
(1) Us-Them Thinking
(2) Moral Disengagement
(3) Blaming the Victims
Proximate influence:
Social
Construction of cruelty
(1) Professional Socialisation
(2) Group Identification
(3) Binding Factors of the Group
[James Waller – 2006]

6. Dr. Jekyll’s Potion │ into the grey zone of evil?
CREA Theater │ 25 maart 2010 │ c.busch
Video: the panthers

7. Dr. Jekyll’s Potion │ into the grey zone of evil?
CREA Theater │ 25 maart 2010 │ c.busch

8. Dr. Jekyll’s Potion │ into the grey zone of evil?
CREA Theater │ 25 maart 2010 │ c.busch
Conditioning and social learning (functional drift)
 Techniques of Neutralization (Sykes & Matza)
• Denial of responsibility
Pushed or pulled into situations
• Denial of injury
Acts do not really cause any harm
• Denial of the victim
Self defense (medical, reproductive,…)
• Condemnations of the condemners
Blaming the others (often historical)
• Appeal to higher loyalties
Race, nation, ‘Volk’, …
 Alex Alvarez
• Denial of humanity (dehumanization)
Video: the panthers

9. The role of social learning along the continuum of destruction
Genocide = process
 Systematic desensitization
• Initiation Routinization Brutalization
Dr. Jekyll’s Potion │ into the grey zone of evil?
CREA Theater │ 25 maart 2010 │ c.busch
The continuum of destruction
Exclusion from the moral world
Process of otherisation
Limited acts of
violence
Severe, gruesome
acts of violence
Moral principles become non-applicable to the victims

10. Dr. Jekyll’s Potion │ into the grey zone of evil?
CREA Theater │ 25 maart 2010 │ c.busch

11. Dr. Jekyll’s Potion │ into the grey zone of evil?
CREA Theater │ 25 maart 2010 │ c.busch

12. Dr. Jekyll’s Potion │ into the grey zone of evil?
CREA Theater │ 25 maart 2010 │ c.busch
Nature
versusGOOD EVIL
the demonic transition
(a popular view on perpetrator behavior)
(a transitional view on perpetrator behavior)Degree
On the individual level!

13. Dr. Jekyll’s Potion │ into the grey zone of evil?
CREA Theater │ 25 maart 2010 │ c.busch
Paradigm shifts in perpetrator research
2010 - …
Mad or Bad model
Innate evil
Pathological disturbance
Situation vs disposition
Situational forces (conformity,
obedience, …)
Dispositional forces (attitude,
personality, …)
Mechanized crime
Murderous bureaucracy
Machinery of destruction
The grey zone of complexity
Complex systems & networks
Interactionist theory
‘40 – ’50 ’60 – ‘80 ’90 – …

14. Dr. Jekyll’s Potion │ into the grey zone of evil?
CREA Theater │ 25 maart 2010 │ c.busch
Paradigm shifts in perpetrator research
Mad or Bad model
Innate evil
Pathological disturbance
Situation vs disposition
Situational forces (conformity,
obedience, …)
Dispositional forces (attitude,
personality, …)
Mechanized crime
Murderous bureaucracy
Machinery of destruction
The grey zone of complexity
Complex systems & networks
Interactionist theory

15. Dr. Jekyll’s Potion │ into the grey zone of evil?
CREA Theater │ 25 maart 2010 │ c.busch
Emotional distance
Systematic desensitization
apathy
Atrocity producing situations
Destructive obedience
Group conformity
Predisposition

16. Dr. Jekyll’s Potion │ into the grey zone of evil?
CREA Theater │ 25 maart 2010 │ c.busch
Patterns emerge from the interactions
between agents (individuals).

17. Dr. Jekyll’s Potion │ into the grey zone of evil?
CREA Theater │ 25 maart 2010 │ c.busch

18. Dr. Jekyll’s Potion │ into the grey zone of evil?
CREA Theater │ 25 maart 2010 │ c.busch
Who is the leader??

19. Dr. Jekyll’s Potion │ into the grey zone of evil?
CREA Theater │ 25 maart 2010 │ c.busch

20. Dr. Jekyll’s Potion │ into the grey zone of evil?
CREA Theater │ 25 maart 2010 │ c.busch
Leadership emerges on every level
Eichmann = HUB ?
Focus on the information transfer

21. Dr. Jekyll’s Potion │ into the grey zone of evil?
CREA Theater │ 25 maart 2010 │ c.busch
“Die »Entfesselung der Endlösung« (Browning) besteht im Wesentlichen in
Arbeit, die gemacht wird. Die »Entfesselung« weist mithin eine ganze Reihe
nicht-intentionaler Aspekte auf, die sie vorantreiben, ja, die sie überhaupt erst
in die Sphäre tatsächlicher Machbarkeit heben. Ein Schlüssel für diese
mörderische Machbarkeit liegt, soziologisch betrachtet, in der auf den ersten
Blick diffusen, tatsächlich aber höchst effizienten Befehlsstruktur. Der
Rahmenbefehl zur Judenvernichtung hatte lediglich eine weit auszulegende
Gelegenheitsstruktur geschaffen, die seinen praktischen Interpreten
Ermessensspeilräum bereitstellte, die diese ganz im Sinne ihres Engagements
und ihres Bedürfnisses nach Effizienz zu nutzen trachteten.“
[Harald Welzer – Täter]

22. Dr. Jekyll’s Potion │ into the grey zone of evil?
CREA Theater │ 25 maart 2010 │ c.busch
CHGE vzw – Belgium
www.chge.be
www.collectiefgeweld.be