“Obedience to Authority: Interdisciplinary Perspectives”
(September 2026)
Eighty years after the conclusion of the Nuremberg Trials – where Nazi perpetrators frequently justified their actions by claiming that they had merely followed orders – the phenomenon of obedience to authority remains central to scholarly debates on mass violence, genocide, the Holocaust, and beyond. Historical research has shown that such atrocities were not carried out by fanatics alone, but by ordinary individuals embedded in specific social, institutional, and organizational contexts. Accordingly, processes such as anticipatory compliance, the fragmentation of responsibility within bureaucratic systems, and the influence of situational pressures and peer conformity continue to shape debates on perpetration, complicity, and dissent.
At the same time, psychological research—originally inspired by these historical events—has developed increasingly differentiated models of obedience, conflict, and agency. Yet, despite these parallel developments, sustained exchange between historically grounded analyses of concrete contexts and experimentally oriented accounts of underlying psychological mechanisms remains limited. This creates a timely opportunity for interdisciplinary dialogue and conceptual integration.
The meeting “Obedience to Authority: Interdisciplinary Perspectives” builds directly on the preceding EASP Small Group Meeting “Obedience to Authority: Milgram’s Legacy and Emerging Directions for Psychological Research” (9–11 September 2026). While the first meeting focuses on theoretical and methodological integration within psychology and neuroscience, this second meeting extends the scope to an explicitly interdisciplinary perspective. We convene historians and scholars from related disciplines (e.g., legal studies, political science, sociology, memory studies) to engage with psychological approaches in a structured dialogue. Our goals are to:
examine how obedience, compliance, complicity, and dissent are conceptualized across disciplines
identify points of convergence and divergence between historical and psychological accounts
clarify where interdisciplinary integration is possible—and where disciplinary specificity must be preserved
situate psychological models of obedience within broader historical, societal, and commemorative contexts
In line with the societal “third mission” of science and our commitment to interdisciplinary exchange, the meeting will include a field visit to the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial Site, organized in cooperation with historians and educators from the memorial and the Center for Commemorative Culture at the University of Regensburg. The visit is intended as a space for reflection on how research on (dis)obedience intersects with historical analysis, public memory, commemorative culture, and contemporary societal debates. The program will combine keynote lectures, research presentations, and structured discussion formats designed to foster sustained exchange and to lay the groundwork for longer-term collaboration. We invite junior and senior scholars to apply. Presentation format: blitz talks (max. 20 minutes + discussion)
