Historical overview of perpetrator studies

This chapter provides a historical overview of perpetrator studies. Starting with the Nuremberg Trials after the Second World War, the defendants were mainly studied by psychologists and psychiatrists. The contemporary predominant belief was that perpetrators of mass atrocities were mentally disturbed. Raul Hilberg’s book on the Holocaust, and Hannah Arendt’s on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, were turning points in our thinking. The new perspective saw perpetrators as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Psychological experiments helped us to understand how ordinary people can be transformed into perpetrators, e.g. Milgram showed how his subjects felt compelled to obey orders from authorities, which they considered legitimate. In the 1990s, the debate between Browning and Goldhagen revolved around if the main causes of a person’s involvement in mass atrocities were situational or dispositional. The debate continues, but all scholars agree that the interaction between dispositional and situational factors is crucial. More recently, scholars have taken a broader approach to studying perpetrators; more case studies were included, new disciplines were used, new methodological approaches were taken, and the study of terrorism has developed into a separate field of expertise. The field of perpetrators studies is now a rapidly developing field of academic inquiry.