For anyone struggling to understand the prisoner-abuse scandal in Iraq, Unmasking Administrative Evil co-authored by GVSU professor Dan Balfour is eye-opening reading. The widely acclaimed book provides startling insights on how ordinary people within their normal professional roles can engage in acts of evil without being aware that they are doing anything wrong. Further, under conditions of moral inversion, people may even view their evil activity as good.
"The book can help the reader understand why the abuse in Iraq can occur with no direct orders given," said Balfour, who is director of the School of Public and Nonprofit Administration at Grand Valley. "What emerges as evil is perpetuated in the early stages as being mundane, normal and even good."
Balfour and co-author Guy B. Adams, associate director of the Harry S. Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri-Columbia, believe that administrative organizations have a tremendous inherent capacity for inflicting pain and suffering -- not inadvertently or accidentally, but willingly. This administrative evil is organizational and rational -- not the work of a crazy leader, personal failings, lax controls, or racist ideologies. Though these factors might be involved, they would have far less impact without modern organizations and their efficiency and professionalism, the authors say.
Unmasking Administrative Evil exposes the consequences of this destructive capacity. The authors show how modern organizations frequently allow evil to be administratively "sanitized" -- accepted as rational and proper -- and that this masking may be inadvertent. To demonstrate how this works they cite many compelling examples -- from the efficient and depersonalized system of exterminating the Jews in Nazi Germany to the failure of NASA's lock-step organizational culture that led to the Challenger disaster to a landmark Stanford University experiment with simulated "prisoners" and "guards" that has astonishing parallels with the stories from Iraq.
Such events are not isolated or aberrant, the authors say, but illustrate how the forces that unleashed them are part of modernity and are thus present in all contemporary public organizations. The book goes on to lay the groundwork for building more effective and humane professions. It is available by order online at www.mesharpe.com or at major bookseller sites.
Unmasking Administrative Evil (2004; 224 pages; M.E. Sharpe) is revised from the book's original edition published in 1998, which won the prestigious Brownlow Award from the National Academy of Public Administration and two "best book of the year" awards from divisions of the Academy of Management. In addition to receiving numerous academic honors, Balfour served as managing editor of the Journal of Public Affairs Education from 1995 to 2000.
