Revisiting Dehumanization through the Lens of Ideology

Dehumanization has long been considered a key factor in mass violence and atrocities. However, the concept faces two main lines of criticism: critics either object to particular aspects of a specific rendering of dehumanization, or they argue against the relevance of dehumanization as necessary for killing people. The latter group highlights that perpetrators sometimes recognized their victims’ humanity, a point some scholars illustrate with individual experiences of Nazi perpetrators during the Holocaust. By doing so, they complicate the notion of dehumanization and advance calls for alternative theoretical approaches to understanding perpetrators’ actions.

This article engages with such criticisms and reconsiders dehumanization through the lens of ideology, framing it as a dynamic, interpretative process. It first applies Leader Maynard’s framework of ideology to approach dehumanization as a fluid concept in order to address heterogeneities in perpetrator–victim relations, emphasizing the process-like nature and role of individual differences in dehumanization. The empirical observations of three prominent critics are re-examined in light of this perspective, grounding the approach to dehumanization in individual experience.