The Dehumanisation Dynamic: A Criminology of Genocide

Abstract

Why do individuals perpetrate the crime of genocide? This thesis utilises an interdisciplinary, criminological approach in order to explore this question. Interviews with perpetrators and victims of genocide in Rwanda, Burundi, Bosnia, Bangladesh, and Cambodia demonstrate the nature of genocide as a non-deviant crime of conformity. Propaganda from the criminogenic state drives this legitimisation of the crime of genocide. Perpetrators rationalise their actions, through the techniques of neutralisation, which are derived from state propaganda, peer influences, and the tendency of individuals to minimise their own culpability. Thus, perpetrator decision-making is rational but is constrained within the context of the genocidal state. Genocide may be prevented by increasing the costs of participation. Perpetrator self-objectification (the removal of agency) occurs in parallel with the objectification (dehumanisation) of victims in order to override the prohibition on killing and facilitate the commission of genocide.