Terribly and Terrifyingly Normal?

What is the role of obedience in mass atrocities? Do people just blindly follow orders? How important are groups and what about conformity? In this session we discuss what we can learn from social-psychology when studying the perpetrators of mass atrocities. We do so together with Maria Ioannou who is a social-psychologist of the University College in Groningen.

Terrorist groups like the Islamic State and regimes like Nazi Germany often justify their crimes through their ideology. Did they really believe they did the right thing or was ideology used as an excuse to commit evil? In this episode, we discuss the role of ideology in mass atrocities together with Dr. Pieter Nanninga from the University of Groningen. He is an expert on terrorism and studied, among other things, short films that suicide terrorists made prior to their attacks.

Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Pol Pot, Slobodan Milosevic and Vladimir Putin: they are the leaders at the top of authoritarian, dictatorial and violent states. Who are they and what is their role in the perpetration of mass atrocities? In this session we discuss these questions with Dr. Maartje Weerdesteijn from VU University who studied the role of dictators in the perpetration of mass atrocities and the manner in which the international community can potentially mitigate these crimes. The episode starts with a discussion highlighting that democratically chosen leaders are not necessarily less dangerous than dictatorial ones.

Who are the perpetrators of mass atrocities? Are they pure evil sadists who are mentally disturbed or rather ordinary people who are terribly and terrifyingly normal as Hannah Arendt suggested when seeing the trial of Adolf Eichmann? In this episode Alette Smeulers will discuss her research and findings on perpetrators of mass atrocities and will focus on all the different kind of people who get involved in genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and terrorism.