Unmasking Administrative Evil

This book is terrific; it should be required reading for all college students. The issues are well-presented and well-integrated. The authors present a thoughtful argument that considers how well-intentioned people can become cogs in administrative evil. The book implores folks to examine those routine work tasks that we don't consider, we just DO. They argue there is a critical need to examine ALL actions for the potential harm it can cause others. It's great to see Public Policy experts put a spotlight on the facts and inspire their own and others to become great citizens and ethical leaders. Bravo.

I am a conservative by nature, and have tried for two years to convince my republican husband to read this book, but he has not yet seen the light. I was not only lucky enough to read this book in my Adminsitrative Ethics class, but also had the priviledge to have Professor Balfour as a professor in my graduate program. The information provided in Unmasking is shocking to say the least; as an administrator, you tell yourself that initiatives and programs the government is doing "for the good of the people" is simply that. However, scratch the surface, and you will find what Adams and Balfour refer to as "moral inversion"--an act that is evil or destructive is redefined as "good and worthy." I can think of a million examples on a local, state, federal and international level that refer to this phenomenon. This book is a must-read for any person presently in public managment, or considering a career in government or politics. And hey, maybe one day my husband will read it.

Humankinds's historic efforts to deal with the problem of evil are exemplified by the understandings of evil provided by psychology, as well as by most theologies and ideologies. All of these resort to some variant of Devil Theory: that evil outcomes are the products of evil people. From this standpoint, an obvious solution to the problem of evil is to identify evil people so that they can be neutralized or destroyed. This kind of understanding is viscerally satisfying, simple, obvious, wrong and dangerous. Unfortunately, it is possible to have evil outcomes in the absence of evil people. This sad truth has been demonstrated experimentally many times (e.g., Stanley Milgram's experiments at Yale University, replicated hundreds of times around the world), and suggested by the work of other researchers (e.g., Phillip Zimbardo at Stanford University). Of the millions of perpetrators of souch holocausts as those of Nazi Germany, Cambodia, Rwanda and Bosnia, most of them were ordinary human beings. Ameliorative actions grounded in Devil Theory might rid us of such figures as Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, and Jack the Ripper, giving us much satisfaction and relief. However, this dangerous theory would ensure that our history continues to record such spectacular atrocities as Mai Lei, the Inquisition, ethnic cleansing, the Oklahoma City Bombing, and the deaths of millions of Kulaks. In their book, Unmasking Administrative Evil, Adams and Balfour provide an important contribution by examining the way in which organizational dynamics and administrative processes --- the very life blood of which is provided by the faceless bureaucrat, the impersonal official, the compliant, dispassionate civil servant --- can generate evil outcomes large in scale and spectacular in impact. Adams and Balfour argue that a linkage of the dynamics of evil with administrative processes is typically lost to view: that is, it is masked. This linkage is masked by the bloodless technical rationality of modern bureaucracy and confluence of science and technology in modernity. To illustrate this, they present two case studies examining these linkages. The first of these is the relation between the Nazi Holocaust and public administration. The second is an examination of organizational dynamics and administrative evil in the Marshall Space Flight Center, NASA, and the launching of the Space Shuttle CHALLENGER. They conclude with chapters on "Public Policy and Administrative Evil" and "Finding a Basis for Ethics in the Public Service." Remaining to be addressed is the nature of evil as such. Also, while they do address some of the social psychological dynamics that account for evil outcomes, they do not go far enough. Worse, I regard their resort to object relations theory to be a misdirected return to Devil Theory. Were they to discuss with me my own research and writing, these difficulties might have been avoided. Regardless, they make an important contributio