Editing Genocide (section)

== Perpetrators ==
{{see also|Perpetrator studies|Hate studies}}
[[File:Group of auxiliary guards at the Nazi death camp Sobibor in 1943.jpg|thumb|Group of auxiliary guards at [[Sobibor extermination camp]] in 1943]]
Genocides are usually driven by states{{sfn|Lemos|Taylor|Kiernan|2023|pp=36–37}}{{sfn|Weiss-Wendt|2022|p=189}} and their agents, such as elites, political parties, bureaucracies, armed
forces, and paramilitaries.{{sfn|Weiss-Wendt|2022|p=189}} Civilians are often the leading agents when the genocide takes places in remote frontier areas.{{sfn|Häussler|Stucki|Veracini|2022|pp=215–216}} A common strategy is for state-sponsored atrocities to be carried out in secrecy by paramilitary groups, offering the benefit of [[plausible deniability]] while widening complicity in the atrocities.{{sfn|Anderson|Jessee|2020|p=12}}{{sfn|Anderton|2023|p=146}}{{sfn|Weiss-Wendt|2022|pp=179–180, 189}} The leaders who organize genocide usually believe that their actions [[genocide justification|were justified]] and regret nothing.{{sfn|Weiss-Wendt|2022|p=186}}

How ordinary people can become involved in extraordinary violence under circumstances of acute conflict is poorly understood.{{sfn|Anderson|Jessee|2020|p=3}}{{sfn|Rechtman|2021|p=174}} The foot soldiers of genocide (as opposed to its organizers) are not demographically or psychologically aberrant.<ref>{{harvnb|Williams|2020|pp=1–2, 211}}; {{harvnb|Anderson|Jessee|2020|pp=8–9}}; {{harvnb|Rechtman|2021|p=190}}; {{harvnb|Maynard|2022|p=319}}</ref> People who commit crimes during genocide are rarely true believers in the ideology behind genocide, although they are affected by it to some extent{{sfn|Maynard|2022|p=152}} alongside other factors such as obedience, [[diffusion of responsibility]], and conformity.{{sfn|McDoom|2020|p=124}} Other evidence suggests that ideological propaganda is not effective in inducing people to commit genocide{{sfn|Luft|2020|p=4}} and that for some perpetrators, the [[dehumanization]] of victims, and adoption of nationalist or other ideologies that justify the violence occurs after they begin to perpetrate atrocities{{sfn|McDoom|2020|pp=124–125}} often coinciding with escalation.{{sfn|Luft|2020|p=5}} Although genocide perpetrators have often been assumed to be male, the role of women in perpetrating genocide—although they were historically excluded from leadership—has also been explored.{{sfn|Kiernan ''et al.''|2023|p=10}} People's behavior changes under the course of events, and someone might choose to kill one genocide victim while saving another.{{sfn|Anderton|2023|p=143}}{{sfn|Rechtman|2021|p=177}}{{sfn|Luft|2020|p=2}} Anthropologist [[Richard Rechtman]] writes that in circumstances where atrocities such as genocides are perpetrated, many people refuse to become perpetrators, which often entails great sacrifices such as risking their lives and fleeing their country.{{sfn|Rechtman|2021|pp=181–182, 187, 191}}