Dubnick 2000C (Case for Administrative Evil)

Review: Spirited DialogueAuthor(s): Margaret H. Vickers, Hubert G. Locke, Melvin J. Dubnick, Guy B. Adams, Danny L.BalfourReviewed work(s):

Unmasking Administrative Evil by Guy B. Adams ; Danny L. BalfourSource: Public Administration Review, Vol. 60, No. 5 (Sep. - Oct., 2000), pp. 464-482Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Society for PublicAdministrationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3110235Accessed: 05/09/2009 23:02

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Book Reviews I Larry Luton, Editor

Spirited Dialogue is a special forum for lively exchanges on books of interest to PAR readers. In this issue, we focus attention on the award winning book, Unmasking Administrative Evil, by Guy Adams and Danny Balfour The exchange begins with a hard-hitting and controversial critique by Mel Dubnick. The essays by Margaret Vickers and Hubert Locke praise the contribution made by Adams and Balfour and respond to Dubnick's critique. The exchange concludes with a response by Adams and Balfour.

LSL

Spirited Dialogue:

The Case for Administrative Evil: A Critique' Melvin J. Dubnick, Rutgers University-Newark

Guy B. Adams and Danny L. Balfour's Unmasking Administrative Evil (UAE) is an important book in several respects, not the least being the attention it has generated among readers both within and outside the field of Public Administration.2 As a community of scholars, Public Administration is not known for its contributions to "popular" literature. We do not tend to publish books likely to be found on the shelves at Borders or Barnes and Noble-not even in the "management" section where just about anything associated with organizational life seems to sell. Beyond the rare exception or two, ours is not a field that draws attention to itself through publishing controversial volumes.

Therefore, any work published by our colleagues receiving some critical attention is indeed an important publication for our community. And the fact that it has received two of the field's major "book of the year" awards3 only reinforces that judgment. UAE is no doubt a book to be reck- oned with for any serious student of Public Administration.

UAE achieved its notable status by being a contentious work, putting forth a strong argument on behalf of a particular viewpoint. It is a work of rhetoric, designed primarily to introduce us to an insightful perspective and to per- suade us of its value for understanding the problematic nature of modem public administration. To the degree

that it stirs debate and reflection about important issues, UAE no doubt deserves the attention and honors it has received. But does it deserve the same degree of attention as a work of scholarship?

What follows is a critical assessment of UAE as a work of scholarship, and my focus is on two general concerns. In the first section, I present a foundation for assessing the credibility of argumentative scholarship and offer an assessment of UAE on those grounds. In the second section, I highlight some of the special responsibilities-some of them ethical-assumed by scholars who use rhetorical and argumentative approaches. Here as well, I assess UAE to see how well it "mea- sures up." In the final section, I dis- cuss what the widespread enthusiasm for this work says about our field and its view of scholarship.

The Credibility of Argumentative Scholarship

Scholarship as Argument Hood and Jackson (1991, especially

ch. 2) characterize the literature of Public Administration as argumentative and rhetorical,4 a view they trace to Herbert Simon's classic critique of orthodoxy in "The Proverbs of Admin- istration."5 The characterization of the field's literature as rhetorical and argumentative may seem harshly judg-

mental at first, and I have previously offered a serious critique of the field's scholarship (Dubnick 1999). There is growing acceptance, however, of the idea that most academic scholarship is in fact focused on efforts to per- suade, and that rhetoric and argumentation play key roles in the conduct and presentation of research in all disciplines (Gross 1996; Edmondson 1984; Nelson, Megill, and McCloskey 1987; Patterson 1996; Mailloux 1989; Fish 1989, ch. 20; Gusfield 1976; Overington 1977). Among students of social scientific inquiry, attention has shifted from the search for universal or reconstructed "logics" of inquiry to an understanding of the dynamic "dis- cursive cultures" of inquiry (Nagel 1961; Hall 1999; Kaplan 1964). For some, this view reinforces the postmodern critique of "scientism," especially in the social sciences (Rosenau 1992). For others, it supports a more realistic view of the imperfect world of scholarship found in all disciplines (Sokal and Bricmont 1998).

In this context, the characterization of UAE as a rhetorical work does little more than make explicit the argumentative form of inquiry used by the authors. They are in good company. Among the contemporary classics of Public Administration are works no less argumentative, from Hummel's The Bureaucratic Experience (1994) and Goodsell's The Case for Bureau- cracy (1994) to Osborne and Gaebler's

464 Public Administration Review * September/October 2000, Vol. 60, No. 5

Reinventing Government (1992). Thus, the assessment of a work such as UAE depends on the standards we as a field accept for argumentative scholarship.

According to philosopher Stephen Toulmin, once we accept the legitimacy of rhetorical and argumentative inquiry, we face a choice between standards derived from idealized logic or "working" logic (1958, especially ch. IV). An idealized logic posits universal standards for an argument's claims, demanding conformity in both form and substance. Simon used such standards in his critique of orthodoxy's principles of administration, concluding they suffered two fatal flaws: they came in conflicting pairs and were grounded in "ordinary knowledge" rather than derived from scientific inquiry. In contrast, a working logic uses standards applied in "real life" conditions, and these are often radically different from idealized standards. Thus, in contrast to Simon, Hood and Jack- son called for the assessment of "administrative arguments" on the basis of their credibility among practitioners who, in turn, rely on their working logic to determine what is acceptable or not acceptable. "Winning administrative ideas," they argue, "are rarely very profound. Often they are repackaged and relabeled [sic] versions of an idea which has been advanced many times before. Frequently their pre- mises come down to some banal notion of 'human nature' coupled with a contestable view about links between cause and effect. 'Proof' typically con- sists of no more than a few colorful examples" (Hood and Jackson 1991, 10-11).

A similar distinction is useful in developing standards for assessing the credibility of argumentative scholarship. We can apply some idealized logic (such as, logical positivism) to claims made by our colleagues, but in the process we are likely to find ourselves reestablishing and reinforcing the same epistemological and method-

ological divisions that have plagued our field for the past half-century. A more productive approach involves the application of standards derived from a working logic relevant to the scholarly functions of the field.

As a claim-asserting argument, UAE is subject to assessment on both idealized and practical grounds. Here I focus on the working logic approach, relying on the basic requirements for a justifiable or credible argument es- tablished by Toulmin in The Uses of Argument.6 Toulmin posits that support for the substance of any claim requires more than the data or evidence that generated it. The fact that the Coast Guard finds debris floating off the coast of Nantucket might lead to the claim that they had discovered the wreckage of an airliner crash, but more is required to establish the claim as justifiable. A credible claim calls for qualifiers and warrants.

Qualifiers are factors that, if true, would lead to a modification of the claim's reliance on the evidence. For example, a shipwreck in the same general area several days prior could be the source of the debris. While not necessarily proving the claim wrong, a qualifier raises issues about the degree of justifiability.

Warrants are an even more fundamental consideration. They provide the justifying link between facts and claims, and can be regarded as propositions offered to support a claim. In their simplest form, they are clear "if ... then" statements: If searchers find debris at a point where the aircraft was last tracked by radar, then the claim that it was from the missing airliner would be justified. If the debris consisted of items typically associated with the missing aircraft, then the claim's justification is even greater.

Toulmin also makes a critically important distinction between "warrant-using" and "warrant-establishing" arguments. Warrant-using arguments justify claims on the basis of propositions that are "taken for granted" or

assumed to be valid. In the example of the aircraft disaster, the technical feasibility and reliability of radar scan data is assumed, and (at least initially) the claim maker does not have to provide support or "backing" for the warrant itself (Elgin 1996, 101-6). In contrast, a warrant-establishing argument will offer backing for the propositions used to link evidence to the claim maker's assertions.

The standards of scholarship in al- most all disciplines require warrant- establishing arguments in cases where the claims or their assumptions are novel or controversial. To the degree that there are certain presuppositions that are widely accepted among the community of scholars within a field, a warrant need not require backing each time it is applied. However, one of the shared assumptions among members of an academic field is that the use of such warrants is subject to challenge-and thus the expectation that a scholar must be prepared to provide support for any warrant used in a particular claim (Chandler, Davidson, and Harootunian 1994).

This is a fundamental expectation in any academic effort that seeks legitimacy as scholarship-an expectation that is shared by the humanities, the sciences, and the social sciences. And it is this expectation that is not met by Adams and Balfour.

The Basic Claims The principal assertion of UAE is

that we are confronted with a new and particularly pernicious form of evil rooted in the "culture of technical rationality." This administrative evil "wears many masks" (4) that keeps it hidden from those "ordinary people" who do its bidding unintentionally. Thus, through the manipulation of language and a process of "moral inversion," administrative evil makes public administrators its unknowing and complicitous agents. The supporting evidence for the existence of administrative evil is all around us-from the

Spirited Dialogue 465

horrors of a technologically driven war machine to public policies that dehu- manize poor and defenseless ("surplus") populations. Moreover, administrative evil is so pervasive and powerful that it is capable of overcom- ing all those external and professional controls designed to offset its worst consequences (see ch. 7). In the end, Adams and Balfour contend that our only hope might come through a radi- cal reconstituting of our dominant culture-from one based on procedural and individualistic values to one grounded in substantive and communitarian values (175-80).

While that brief summary does not do justice to the elaborate argument woven by Adams and Balfour, it presents the basic claims of their argument. As novel and controversial as those claims seem, however, they are not accompanied by clear warrants. And such warrants as are used to support the major claims lack the kind of authoritative or evidentiary backing one might expect for such a controversial analysis. Adams and Balfour seem aware of this shortcoming and address those readers "who can look at human history and see no evil" or those who might regard "negative in- teraction in human affairs" as merely "dysfunctional behavior" rather than evidence of evil. "We ask that these readers set aside their objections and give the argument a chance to convince them" (xx). This would be a rea- sonable request if we were able to accept the ability to "convince" as an appropriate standard for scholarship. Being "convincing" may be a necessary expectation for any argument, but is not sufficient in the pursuit of credible scholarship.

Consider, for example, the book's most fundamental claims that (a) the world has long suffered from evil and (b) today it is suffering from a "new and frightening form of evil-administrative evil" (4). For Adams and Balfour, the claim that evil is a historical fact is self-evident and there-

fore requires no further support-in Toulmin's terms, it is a warrant-using argument.

Their approach to the second claim, however, is necessarily more explicit, for they are simultaneously creating a new concept of evil while arguing for their claim that administrative evil is inherent in the modem human condition. This is a warrant- establishing argument; therefore, they should be expected to provide backing for the claim and expect the proposition to be challenged.

The Definition of Administrative Evil

Adams and Balfour define evil itself as "instances in which humans knowingly and deliberately inflict pain and suffering on other human beings" (xix; emphasis added). This definition is quickly changed and eventually transformed as the presentation unfolds. The explicit change occurs just a page later when the authors make a distinction between historical evil (which fits the initial definition) and administrative evil, which seems to lack the core characteristics of "knowing" and "deliberate" behavior (xx- xxi). This turns out to be a critical change, for it leads to a conceptual ambiguity that is central to determining the work's scholarly credibility.

Administrative evil, as developed by Adams and Balfour, is dangerously different from traditional evil because people carry it out unaware that they are engaging in evil behavior. In contrast, what has made the traditional concept of evil behavior so interest- ing and challenging for philosophers, fiction writers, and others is that it involves actors who are aware of the wrongs they are committing and who have reflected on their bad actions. The literary models often used by philosophers include Iago in Shakespeare's Othello and John Claggart in Melville's Billy Budd- characters who understood what they were doing was wrong, and who con-

cluded upon reflection that they must do their evil deeds (McGinn 1997; Midgley 1984, 139-45). Take away awareness and deliberateness, and you have effectively created a hollow conceptualization of evil, useless for purposes of explaining or understanding human behavior.

Adams and Balfour develop this revised idea of evil by elaborating on various factors that render this modem evil quite different from evils of the past. The modem form uses both the "modem complex organization" and the culture of technical rationality as masking devices (xxi). Once they have characterized administrative evil as "masked," a new narrative sub- tly emerges to replace the traditional one. What started as a characterization of actions ("instances" of inflicting pain and suffering) is transfigured into a historical force-one energized by the cultural norms of technical rationality that make members of modem bureaucratic agencies the unknowing and non-deliberative agents of its de- testable deeds.

This conceptual transfiguration is achieved in chapter 1, where the authors adopt two perspectives-one behavioral and the other post-Freud- ian-that are intended to support the idea of administrative evil. Early in chapter 1, Adams and Balfour rein- force their hollow conceptualization of evil by shifting more explicitly from their original definition of evil to a "behavioral" definition that renders it as the "antithesis of good in all its principal senses" (2). From this view, evil behavior is no different from any other bad or destructive behavior except perhaps in degree of badness. Evil, therefore, can range from the hurtful white lie to mass murder. Intentional- ity is no longer a requirement; nor is agential consciousness.

Having freed the concept of evil from those characteristics that allow us to meaningfully differentiate it from other forms of bad behavior, Adams and Balfour turn to the task of estab-


lishing a theoretical rationale for evil as an autonomous historical force, while retaining the linkage between human behavior and administrative evil. This is no easy task since human awareness and intent are irrelevant to the operations of this new evil. With- out creating that linkage, their case would rest on the "myth of pure evil"-a situation they explicitly seek to avoid (12-14).

To make the connection between the evil inherent in human life and administrative evil, Adams and Balfour turn to a Kleinian version "object-relations" psychology, an important choice for Adams and Balfour despite their assertion that "[t]here may be other and perhaps better ex- planations" upon which to construct the story of administrative evil (11). Among alternative theories, the Kleinian version7 of object-relations psychology tends to be deterministic, stressing the influence of past experience and leaving little room for individual choice and responsibility (Minsk 1999, ch. 2 and 3; Mitchell 1988, 256-7).

But the most relevant feature of Kleinian theory for Adams and Balfour are the various mechanisms it offers to rationalize the emergence of administrative evil from within human societies. They include "projective identification," and "containers" (Minsky 1999, 37-9, 165-7). Projective identification provides the means by which both good and bad feelings are exter- nalized to objects in the environment. They also take the original Kleinian idea of the mother-as-an-external-container for those feelings, and substitute moder organizations and social institutions for the mother. Putting these mechanisms together, they contend that the evil inherent in each person is ex- ternalized into organizational and insti- tutional "holding environments" through projective identification.

The issues raised by this range from the credibility of the Kleinian model itself to the liberties taken by Adams

and Balfour in applying it in this particular case. This is a pivotal point in determining the scholarly standing of the administrative evil argument, and yet the authors spend less than three pages elaborating its complex logic.

One of the earliest advocates and practitioners of applying this particular theory to organizations has con- cluded that extrapolation of the projective identification and container mechanisms to moder social institutions is dysfunctional as well as unpro- ductive (Jaques 1995). A key focus of his criticism is the use of "technical psychoanalytic concepts as organizational metaphors disguised in scientific clothing. It strengthens obfuscation." Singled out for criticism by Jaques is the concept of "transference," for its application relies on the assumption that organizations and institutions have an unconscious-a critical premise of the psychoanalytic approach that is now generally dismissed even by those who continue to pursue its application to organization life (Amado 1995). Yet for the administrative evil argument to work, organizations and social institutions must possess an unconscious that manifests itself in the ideologies and belief systems of its members. Most contemporary students of moder organizations and institutions have adopted concepts of culture in lieu of the psychoanalytic unconscious (such as, Douglas 1986), which leads to the question of why Adams and Balfour did not do the same when seeking to explain the autonomous existence of administrative evil. The obvious answer is that such a concept could not be sup- ported by socio-historical or socio-cultural theories.

Adams and Balfour do not let the problematic nature of their conceptualization deter them from pursuing the argument. The true nature of administrative evil emerges slowly throughout the rest of the presentation, assuming an ever-widening range of attributes with the reading of each chapter. We know from the first chap-

ters that the culture and logic of technical rationality is a core feature of administrative evil, and by the end of the book we know this involves such things as a "scientific-analytic mind- set," moral inversions and perversions, instrumental rationality, professional- ism and expertise, efficiency, scientific rigor, modernity, diminished historical consciousness, destructive organizational dynamics, "persecutory organizational culture," procedural-ism, rational problem-solving, inhumane public policies, and moral vacuity. Thus, by the end of their presentation Adams and Balfour have offered up the concept as an all-encompassing primum mobile capable of filling in that gnawing gap in our ability to make sense of this (obviously) terrible world. The question remains, are they "warranted" in doing so.

This reconceptualization of evil comes with considerable cost and little, if any, gain. They have emptied evil of its basic features, and what remains is a phenomenon so abstract and comprehensive in scope that it borders on being conceptually "magical" (Frazer 1951, 56-7).

Just as important, by taking this approach Adams and Balfour create still another in a long line of diversions from the really difficult questions raised by the Holocaust, the Chal- lenger accident, and the other cases touched on in UAE. As noted below, Sofsky's own "thick description" of Nazi concentration camp operations- as well as Browning's study of Re- serve Police Battalion 101-demon- strates, warrantable claims can be made about the role of public administrators in the Holocaust (Sofsky 1996, 8; Browning 1992). But such claims are typically more complex than the contention that some demonic cultural force was at work making clueless people conduct history's most gruesome genocide.

The inability of Adams and Balfour to properly warrant the concept of administrative evil is not surprising in


light of the other scholarship that uses or makes reference to evil in general. The authors are only partly correct in observing that evil "is not an accepted entry in the lexicon of the social sciences" (1), for anthropologists, psy- chologists, and other social and behavioral scientists have devoted many volumes and journal pages to the subject. Many scholars study evil as a cultural phenomenon, just as they study rituals, religions, and ethical systems (Parkin 1985; Pagels 1995; Delbanco 1995). Still another group of scholars study phenomena previously attributed to "evil" with the intent of demonstrating that such a characterization has been an obstacle to a better understanding of behavior and social life. Most noteworthy among these was the work of Konrad Lorenz, whose most famous work-published in English as On Aggression-was originally titled So-Called Evil (Lorenz 1969; Midgley 1984, 65). More recently, at least two popular books have carried this argument even further by stressing the "natural" and "necessary" role of so-called evil in human and social development (Watson 1995; Bloom 1995).

Thus, evil is of interest to a wide range of social science scholars. Nev- ertheless, in an extended search of re- cent social science, I could find no other authors adopting evil of any form as a historical force in explaining social events. There are authors who see socially perceived evil as something to be considered in social analysis, and well-known writers who have used the term as a literary em- bellishment or rhetorical device to enhance and highlight their argument (Tiger 1987). But I could find no credible scholarship relying on the existence of evil as a real and effective force in the world.

Historical Evil The reliance on history to support

any scholarly argument is a tricky business. This is especially true when

working with evidence or interpretations drawn from the field of Holo- caust studies where historiographic and conceptual debates are numerous and typically filled with emotion (Kellner 1994; Kansteiner 1994; Braun 1994; Land 1995). Yet, Adams and Balfour attempt to support their concept of administrative evil by relying on historical evidence drawn primarily from the Holocaust (ch. 3), and it is for this effort that their work has drawn the most attention.

Like all scholars relying on historical data and interpretations to test their theories or support their claims, Adams and Balfour must deal with the reality that historical facts do not speak for themselves. Those who research and write history acknowledge that there exists an inherent bias in what they choose to study and how they conduct and present their research. And those making use of historical scholarship understand that there exists an equally powerful bias at work in the selection of relevant facts and interpretations to support their claims. These problems have been openly acknowledged for decades not only by historians, but also by historical sociologists and other social scientists relying on historical analysis (Lustick 1996; Skocpol 1984; Luton 1999). It is the reason most scholars approach historically based claims with care and caution.

For decades, Raul Hilberg and others (Hilberg 1992; Browning 1992; Goldhagen 1996) have been docu- menting the roles played by civil servants and other administrators in per- petrating the Holocaust, and Adams and Balfour make use of that data to present their case for the existence of administrative evil. The issue is whether they did so in a credible way-that is, according to basic standards of credible scholarship.

Here it is important to note both what Adams and Balfour did do and what they did not do. In addition to the brutal facts of the Holocaust,

Adams and Balfour harnessed a range of well-known historical interpretations in support of their claims about administrative evil. Within the literature of Holocaust studies, their work can be regarded as an extension of an interpretive line that starts with Hilberg's systematic documentation of the role played by the German civil service and is pursued analytically by Hannah Arendt and Zygmunt Bauman.

Hilberg's research was among the first to stress the role of "ordinary" Germans in the Holocaust, and his relentless mining of previously ignored records has provided a significant insight into the machinery of a genocidal regime. What he garners from the research is the existence of a bureaucra- tized logic of destruction only possible in moder society (Hilberg 1985).

Arendt's Eichmann In Jerusalem was among the first interpretations to apply Hilberg's work as she developed her controversial arguments regarding the "banality of evil" pervad- ing Hitler's totalitarian regime. The crime of Eichmann and others was rooted in a "sheer thoughtlessness" (Arendt 1976, 287-8) cultivated by the bureaucratic context within which they operated as functionaries. But Arendt's analysis of the administrative nature of the Holocaust was tem- pered by facts indicating that the implementation of the "Final Solu- tion" varied from nation to nation- in some places it was carried out with enthusiasm, in others with considerable procrastination.

It is Bauman who articulates an interpretation closest to Adams and Balfour. The facts and lessons of the Holocaust, he argued, are not confined to what happened to the Jews, or even what took place in Germany under Hitler. They were universal lessons about the logic and power of modernity. "Ipropose to treat the Holocaust as a rare, yet significant and reliable, test of the hidden possibilities of modem society" (Bauman 1989, 12; emphasis in original). His Rousseauean


thesis regarded modernity and its institutions as engaged in the "production of moral indifference" and thus anathema to the human capacity to apply pre-social moral judgments. From the tragic facts of the Holocaust, Bauman derives the foundations for a "sociological theory of morality" that, if appropriately developed, can help us understand contemporary issues well beyond those raised by the Holo- caust itself.

The thrust and influence of Bauman's argument is evident throughout UAE, not merely in spe- cific citations, but in the logic of the argument itself. Modernity is the key factor in the argument presented by Adams and Balfour, just as it is in Bauman's analysis. Bauman, like Adams and Balfour, relies on a "historical force" narrative to present his argument. But his remains an empiri- cally grounded analysis focused on the objective of developing a sociological theory that explains how the social foundations for morality have disap- peared under modernity, thus making the Holocaust possible. Adams and Balfour, in contrast, use the same evidence to argue for the existence of a historical force energized by the technical rationality of modem society and powerful enough to fulfill its own destructive logic.

In brief, Adams and Balfour extended the interpretive historical logic of Hilberg, Arendt, and Bauman to meet the needs of their distinctive argument. In pursuing a logic close to Bauman's, however, they have sub- jected themselves to a criticism lev- eled at his approach. In an otherwise sympathetic review of Bauman's work, Todorov critiques his inability to make obvious conceptual and historical distinctions as he applied his argument. "Is it really possible to believe, if we take the word 'rationality' in its broad sense ... that our moder society is the only one endowed with reason?" And if we view moder rationality in a narrow sense, "is there

really no difference between the thought processes of Einstein and those of Himmler?" Similarly, was there no difference between the rationality and technology driving the organization of German and American concentration camps? (Todorov 1990, 32). Todorov's questions can apply as well to the presentation and analysis of historical evidence in UAE.

As important, however, is what Adams and Balfour did not do to enhance the scholarly credibility of their work. The problematic nature of historical scholarship and the demands of scholarly credibility in argumentative contexts require much more of Adams and Balfour than merely citing authoritative sources. In fact, the contentious nature of scholarly debates within Ho- locaust studies makes it difficult to des- ignate any source as authoritative-a situation not unlike the general condition of most fields associated with "socio-historical" studies. Under such circumstances, any author asserting a history-based claim must put forth credible backing for its warrants.

But this does not mean it is impossible to make controversial claims based on evidence culled from the Holocaust. Here the model to follow is provided by one of the most debated works on the Holocaust, Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Execu- tioners (1996). Realizing the controversial nature of his argument, Goldhagen is careful to note compet- ing perspectives and makes efforts to subject them to the same "empirical tests" he offers in support of his own contentions. He reasserts this position in a response to his critics issued just prior to publication of the book's Ger- man edition, arguing that the work "is not a polemic about German 'national character' or 'collective guilt.' It is a scholarly investigation that offers a new interpretation of the Holocaust" (Goldhagen 1996, ch.15). Goldhagen then faults many of his critics for not responding to the central issues he raises with "systematic counter-evi-

dence and arguments" (Goldhagen 1998/1996, 133). Regardless of one's ultimate assessment of Goldhagen's substantive claims, what he presents meets the standards of credible scholarship challengeable on its warrants and merits. The argument for administrative evil made by Adams and Balfour also requires such an approach, but the authors do not deliver.

In relying on the Holocaust to support their claim regarding administrative evil, Adams and Balfour take note of two popular conceptual frameworks for understanding the role of public administrators in the Holocaust (i.e., the "intentional" and "functional" interpretations) and judge both to be useful but insufficient for comprehending what really took place (56-60). They contend those frameworks downplay the role played by the administrative evil of technical rationality in making agency adaptation to the operational demands of the Holocaust so easy to achieve.

Understandably, history has focused on the brutality of the SS, the Ge- stapo, and the infamous concentration camp doctors and guards. Much less attention has been given to the thousands of public administrators such as those in the Finance Minis- try who engaged in confiscations, the armament inspectors who organized forced labor, or municipal authorities who helped create and maintain ghettos and death camps throughout Germany and Eastern Europe. The destruction of the Jews was procedurally indistinguishable from any other modern organizational process (66; emphasis added).

Adams and Balfour face no problem in finding historical evidence to support their view. But they fail to deal with the alternative theories that com- pete, conflict, and even undermine their claims based on the same historical data.

Breton and Winthrope (1986), for example, present a model that credits intra-bureau and inter-agency compe-


tition as the driving force behind administrative involvement. Others stress the capacity of otherwise ordinary people to engage in the most vicious and inhumane acts against others. Sofsky (1996, 240), for example, is straightforward in his assumption about human nature: "Inhumanity is always a human possibility. For it to erupt, all that is required is absolute license over the other."

In Christopher Browning's study of citizen-soldiers-turned-killers, social and psychological circumstances ruled, but these were not the product of some modem rationalistic culture. Instead, the members of that unit were men at war subject to peer pressure, a siege mentality, and a constant barrage of patriotic and ideological call to arms. "If the men of Reserve Police Battal- ion 101 could become killers under such circumstances, what group of men cannot?" (Browning 1992, 189).

In more direct conflict with the administrative evil claim is

Goldhagen's argument that the key to understanding why ordinary Ger- mans willingly engaged in the genocide is found in the unique history and culture of the German people. According to Goldhagen (1996), what drove the Holocaust was not some scientific-analytic mind-set, but a deeply rooted and vicious form of anti-Semitism that was waiting for someone like Hitler to unleash its destructive energy.

Still another set of challenges to the administrative evil thesis emerges from several works raising questions about the assumed technical rationality of the Final Solution. A strong case can be made for the claim that the Holocaust was implemented within a context of antirationalism and irratio- nalism (Proctor 1988; Harrington 1996). It is not the logic of rationality, but the logic of psychosis that needs to be emphasized. Summarizing the position of Holocaust historian Saul Friedlander, Glass contends:

If the explanation of the Holocaust rests on theories of instrumental rationality, on bureaucratic processing or functionalism, it is difficult to see the instrumental properties in gas chambers and crematoria. Rational- ity and economic concerns may describe some of the motives behind medical experiments and the use by German industry of slave labor. But the death of those who perished in

gas chambers possessed no functional utility; no economic gains or rational self-interest could be ascribed to the genocide. Annihilation of Jews contributed nothing to the war effort; in fact, great resources, particularly railroad stock, was [sic] diverted from both fronts to trans-

port Jews to the killing centers. Bod- ies that could have been instrumental in the war effort ... were gassed and incinerated. It makes no sense ... to attribute a rational component to these kinds of "special actions" (1997, 162).

What is important about each of these alternatives to the administrative evil argument is the substantial effort made by their advocates to justify and validate their claims with evidence and

supportable warrants. Comparatively, UAE's primary claim about the existence of administrative evil stands on very weak grounds.

Responsible Argumentation

The standards for judging scholarly argumentation involve more than credibility. There is an ethical dimension as well, reflecting the sense that scholars must apply their rhetorical skills responsibly (Aristotle 1991, 35-6; Cmiel 1990, 24-6). As with credibility, standards of responsibility are field dependent; and in scholarly communities they are set forth in normative expectations regarding everything from data-gathering procedures to styles of presentation (Cross 1996; Cole 1992).

Scholars who explicitly use argu-

mentative approaches need to deal with the potential consequences of the logic they use in their presentations. There are two concerns: The work's "internal" logic-that is, the impact of its narrative on the reader's conclusions-and its "external" logic-that is, the potential for misuse of the authors' narratives and claims.

The Internal Logic As noted previously, Adams and

Balfour develop a narrative that is driven by their characterization of administrative evil as an autonomous historical force emerging from modernity's technical rationality culture. By using the word "evil" and detaching this particular concept from human choice and motivations, Adams and Balfour make it easy for the reader to think of administrative evil as a su- pernatural force-a perspective rein- forced by the narrative that unfolds in chapters 4 though 6.

The story told in those chapters weaves a plotline that takes the reader from Hitler's war effort to the fateful decision to launch the Challenger and then to current U.S. defense, welfare reform, and immigration policies.

When attempting to describe the underlying narrative in this story to others, I have found it useful to com- pare the book with a movie released at about the same time. In Fallen, ac- tor Denzel Washington plays John Hobbes, a police detective who attends the execution of Edgar Reese, a serial killer he helped put behind bars. In a final confrontation with Hobbes, Reese reaches out to touch his nemesis and, failing to do so, eventually settles for contact with a guard pre- paring him for the execution. As it turns out, the body of the person being executed that day is merely the holding container for Azazel, a fallen angel and the embodiment of evil cursed to roam the earth without form. Reese dies, but Azazel continues to conduct his evil business by entering new bodies.


Although receiving mediocre reviews and finding a small audience, Fallen did gamer some accolades for its intellectualized plot-it was a "thinking person's" horror movie that avoided the gore of more popular films of that genre. The idea that evil inhabits the earth and survives by pos- sessing the bodies of ordinary people without their knowing seemed to work because it felt familiar-not only as a scenario for a movie but as a theologized explanation for the hor- rific behavior of serial killers and mass murderers.

In UAE, the administrative evil of Hitler's regime is passed on to the Werner von Braun team of German rocket scientists through their association with actions "for which others in postwar Germany were convicted of war crimes" (74). Operations at the infamous concentration camp at Mittelbau-Dora were directly linked to weapons production efforts, including the V-2 program. Adams and Balfour focus on the use of slave labor and deaths at that location and at the Peenemiinde site where V-2 operations were housed earlier in the war. The evidence shows substantial involvement by von Braun in decisions related to operations at those sites- involvement that made him and his team members agents of administrative evil. But the U.S. military's pursuit of its technical rational goals "blinded" key American decision mak- ers to issues raised by that involvement (105). Thus, by bringing that team to the United States, our government was essentially aiding the transfer of administrative evil to the U.S. military- and eventually to the space program.

Based in Marshall Space Flight Center, von Braun's team created an administrative culture fostering a managerial style rooted in technical rationality that was instilled in those who rose through the ranks at NASA to top positions. Ultimately, what emerges at Marshall and "NASA more generally" is a "destructive organizational dy-

namic" that Adams and Balfour eventually link to the decision to launch the Challenger Shuttle. Administrative evil was at work in NASA.

As someone familiar with studies of the Challenger disaster, I admit I found this entire narrative more than a bit fantastic and quite disturbing. Just as disturbing is this quote from the concluding paragraph to their analysis indicating that the authors realized how far they had taken the logic of their narrative:

The destructive organizational culture that manifested itself during and before Challenger put lives at un- necessary risk. It would be unfair and unwarranted to connect Chal- lenger with the unmasked and essentially transparent administrative evil demonstrated at Mittlebau- Dora and Peenemunde. Operations Overcast and Paperclip [which brought the von Braun team to America], policies of the U.S. government, each abetting administrative evil, represent only an ironic connection to later events at the Marshall Space Flight Center and with Challenger. Whatever administrative evil can be legitimately attributed to Marshall is of the typi- cal organizational variety in our time and in our culture. It is opaque and complex, and no one can be identified with evil intentions. It is well masked (133-4; emphasis added).

The narrative's logic is extended (ch. 6) beyond the space program as Adams and Balfour link the culture of technical rationality in American public policy making on a wide range of issues to the spread of administrative evil. Defense policies, Clinton's welfare reforms, restrictive immigration policies, efforts to dismantle affirma- tive action-all are pictured as manifestations of administrative evil, despite the authors' periodic injection of qualifying statements. For example, after making an explicit comparison between Nazi portrayal of Jews and the portrayal of welfare recipients in the debate over reform, Adams and

Balfour stress that their point "is not to say that those who advocate a particular approach to welfare reform are Nazis or have genocidal intent, but to highlight the dangers inherent in the approach that tacitly defines and then dehumanizes a surplus population" (149).

Adams and Balfour's pattern of warning readers against the obvious conclusions of their arguments is a fundamental flaw found throughout the book. The following may be the ultimate example:

Despite what may initially seem to be a negative treatment of the public service, it is not our intention to somehow diminish public administration, engage in bureaucrat bashing, or give credence to misguided arguments that governments and their agents are necessarily or inher- ently evil. In fact, our aim is quite the opposite: to get beyond the superficial critiques and lay the groundwork for a more ethical and democratic public administration, one that recognizes its potential for evil and thereby creates greater possibilities for avoiding the many pathways toward state-sponsored dehumanization and destruction (5).

It is hard to take this disclaimer seriously by the time one completes chapter 6.

There are those who would contend that it is the reader's responsibility not to read too much into a work. I am among those who take seriously the counsel of Robert Graves and Alan Hodge that writers must conduct their work as if the reader is looking over their shoulder (Graves and Hodge 1979). Had Adams and Balfour followed that advice, a quite different- and perhaps more convincing-argument might have emerged.

The External Logic While scholarly arguments are typi-

cally conducted within academic communities, there is a more general social context to consider. In some fields


where research is policy-relevant or market-relevant, the fact that the general community might be interested in certain research findings has had an impact on everything from the selection of titles to the timing and word- ing of scholarly work.

Adams and Balfour are not naive on this point. They hope their work will not only increase awareness of administrative evil, but also result in adoption of the cultural changes necessary to preempt the emerging dangers of a state wedded to technical-rational problem solving. This is the primary focus of the seventh and final chapter in UAE where the authors call for the creation of a new communitarian-based cultural foundation for administrative ethics.

But the authors seem indifferent to the possibility that other prescriptions and lessons might be drawn from their presentation. Disclaimers notwith- standing, Adams and Balfour have generated an argument open to mis- interpretation and abuse. It is a logic that can be used to demonize those who are contaminated by the evil forces they unknowingly serve. One lesson of the Oklahoma City bomb- ing is that public administrators can easily become a stigmatized population, subject to the worst forms of scapegoating and targeted for violent action (Douglas 1995; Goffman 1963; MacCormack 1993; Douglas 1992; Herzfeld 1992). Within the context of a political culture predisposed to bureaucracy bashing, the association of public administrators with a pernicious and pervasive form of evil can prove to be a thoughtless (albeit unintended) act.

I am not advocating that our colleagues avoid publishing controversial claims or moderate their views. Rather, there are certain issues and themes that require consideration of possible misuse by some part of the work's general readership. Anti-Semitic Revi- sionists, for example, have taken advantage of one well-known

historian's blunt statements that there was no firm evidence gas chambers were used in Auschwitz or that Hitler knew of the Holocaust (Rosenbaum 1998, ch. 12). We ought to be aware that our audience sometimes includes the Theodore Kaczynskis and Timo- thy McVeighs of the world-and structure our arguments accordingly.

Concluding Comments As is common practice with a book

of this sort, the back cover contains quotes from several prominent scholars attesting to the virtues of UAE. It is an award-winning book. But it is also a book that challenges some fundamental standards of scholarship in a way that can only do harm to our field.

This assessment is not easy to make, for both authors are in fact extremely competent members of our field who have several notable-I would even suggest "classic"-works to their credit. As I contemplated this review, I tried to understand how a work with such flaws could have emerged from their partnership, and how it received so many accolades and awards. I have no firm answers to offer, but I do have three comments derived from some speculations about the writing and reception of UAE.

My initial speculation is that the concept of administrative evil was developed as a rhetorical device to enhance the presentation of the modernity thesis. Perhaps the concept took on a logical life of its own that drove the book's presentation. Their decision to follow that logic reflected their opinion of the larger audience their book would reach. As it turns out, this was a Faustian pact that paid divi- dends, but at a significant cost in terms of scholarly credibility.

A second speculation also relates to the previous work of the authors. Both Adams and Balfour have been leaders

mote a more "diverse" approach to research in the field. The issue is epistemological, and the solutions advo- cated by Adams, Balfour, and others (White and Adams 1994) include opening scholarship in the field to interpretive and critical theory approaches as well as to positivist research. In a sense, with UAE, the authors were practicing what they preached. But scholarship is not an "anything goes" endeavor. There are standards to be taken into account, and while these may vary from field to field and over time within each field, they must be addressed if a work is to be regarded as credible and responsible.

My third speculation relates to the positive reception UAE received from individuals and organized divisions in the field. On this point, I suspect both the subject matter as well as the reputation of the authors were the determining factors. While others had confronted the issue of public administration's role in the Holocaust, Adams and Balfour seemed to be the first within our field to tackle it from a Public Administration perspective. But Adams and Balfour added nothing new to our understanding of the Holocaust. Their analysis was not designed to generate a greater understanding of the Holocaust, but to use what was known about it as a means for promoting their distinctive claims about modem public administration.

There are many lessons to be culled from UAE about the state of theory and research in our field. Most of the issues raised by UAE are not unique to that work or its authors, but are rooted in Public Administration's inability (unwillingness?) to develop a disciplinary identity that would give some grounding for appropriate scholarly standards.

in an influential movement among Public Administration theorists to pro-


Notes 1. I am indebted to Jonathan Justice,

Randa Dubnick, Larry Luton, and Jonathan Inz for their comments and reactions.

2. Here I follow the convention of capi- talizing public administration when referring to the academic field-and using lower case to refer to the practice.

3. The National Academy of Public Administration's 1998 Louis Brownlow Award and the 1998 Best Book Award from the Academy of Management's Public and Nonprofit Management Division.

4. Those who study classical rhetoric would quickly point out that rhetoric and argumentation cannot be used as synonyms. Here I accept the view of Chaim Perelman's "new rhetoric" approach that focuses on argumentation. See Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969.

5. Hood and Jackson 1991, especially, ch. 2; see Simon 1946. This reliance on argumentation and rhetoric can be attributed, in part, to the field's ongoing "identity crisis" that creates a schizo- phrenic life for academics constantly torn between the demands of profes- sionalism and disciplinary scholarship. The professional commitments stress our roles as advocates, reformers, and the trainers of public service practitioners. Disciplinary obligations require adherence to the same standards of scholarship as our colleagues in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences. The tension manifests itself in many different ways, including ambiguity when attempting to assess the published work of our peers. See Dubnick 1999.

6. Also see Elgin 1996, especially ch. IV. 7. The work of Melanie Klein, regarded

as the founder of the object-relations approach, represents just one of several strands of this psychoanalytic school. For a contrasting perspective, see the work of Donald Winnicott; see Minsky 1999, chs. 2 and 3 on Klein and Winnicott respectively.

Melvin J. Dubnick is a professor of public administration and political science at Rutgers Univer- sity-Newark. He writes and teaches about account- ability, ethics, and civic education. From 1991-96 he served as managing editor of PAR. Email: dubnick@mediaone. net

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A New Concept Margaret H. Vickers, University of Western Sydney, Australia

Vivifying the need to unmask and to further explore the concept of administrative evil cannot be underestimated. Guy Adams and Danny Balfour have unveiled a previously unexplored notion in Public Administration (PA), one that deserves the spirited dialogue that has been unleashed here. I begin by briefly outlining the key concepts in the book, moving from there to some discussion and examples of how the ideas encapsulated in Unmasking Administrative Evil might flow beyond the PA space. From there, this essay offers some suggestions as to how this

474 Public Administration Review e September/October 2000, Vol. 60, No. 5

work might be strengthened and extended, with the final section being saved for an energetic retort to Dubnick's questions about the credibility of Adams and Balfour's work.

First, Unmasking Administrative Evil is a very good read. The primacy of research being readable should not be underestimated: research that is not palatable, frequently, does not get read. But Adams and Balfour have provided us with something far beyond "inter- esting." This is not, as Dubnick has scornfully suggested, merely a "popular" piece or a work of rhetoric, nor does it present a "hollow conceptualization of evil." This is a work that vivifies the important and necessary task of fundamentally rethinking the PA fixation on technical rationality (xiv) by portraying, in a stimulating and provocative fashion, one of PA's potentially nastier outcomes-administrative evil.

Adams and Balfour argue, initially, that evil involves the knowing and deliberate inflicting of pain and suffering on others (xxi). Moreover, they argue that evil can also exist when pain and suffering is inflicted, with perpetrators doing so without knowing that their actions are evil. They are doing evil because it is their job, because it is the law, or because they have been instructed to do so for the greater good (xxi). This is administrative evil-evil that has been socially packaged as being normal and appropriate behavior (xxi), and therein lays its danger. Whilst administrative evil may not necessarily be a new phenomenon, it is newly identified, hence the accolades and awards.

The four key arguments of Adams and Balfour's book (4) are clearly ar- ticulated: First, the problems of the technical-rational mind-set as an approach to social and political problems enables a new and frightening form of evil-administrative evil-which is of special concern in that it is masked, making it easy for ordinary people to engage in it without intending to do

so. Secondly, the masked nature of administrative evil allows for those so engaged to redefine the evil act as something good and worthy. Adams and Balfour describe this as a "moral inversion" (4). Thirdly, two of administrative evil's favored masks are ex- amined: one, that people engage in patterns and activities of evil that they are unaware of; and two, that social and public policies can culminate in evil as administrators pursue instrumental or technical (as opposed to ethical) goals. Fourth, those engaging in administrative evil are professionals that may be blinded by the public service and professional ethics that are anchored in the scientific-analytic mind-set, which generally requires a technical-rational approach to administrative or social problems.

Adams and Balfour address these questions by examining a number of historical events. For example, the devastation of the Holocaust is ex- plored as something incrementally achieved through legislative and administrative changes (60). The organizational problems at the Marshall Space Flight Center resulted in the treatment of the O-Ring failure on Challenger as an acceptable flight risk (117) through a series of dangerous, incremental administrative shifts. The masking of evil via U.S. public policy and its implementation, as required by Operations Overcast and Paperclip, resulted in the questionable entry of the von Braun team to the United States (105).

Addressing the problems of the technical-rational approach to "messy" administrative problems is not new (See, Cohen, March, and Olsen 1972; Rittel and Webber 1973). Adams and Balfour are, similarly, concerned with the ultimate difficulties that arise from a continued reliance and acceptance of the "engineer's approach" of common sense, ingenuity, and rationality, especially in policy making and implementation. How- ever, what Adams and Balfour offer is

a new perspective on evil and administrative processes and outcomes, and it is that which is so valuable to practitioners and scholars of PA.

Administrative Evil: Beyond Public Administration

The task of exposing administrative evil is not a quest that should be re- stricted to PA. Masked administrative evil is evident in both the public and private spheres. When one reflects, one can see numerous examples of evil cloaked by ontological, ideological, and normative organizational assumptions. For administrative evil to lurk, deaths do not have to occur.

For example, the phenomenon of downsizing is now considered normal business practice (Orlando 1999, 295) in both public and private organizations and, yet, has a profound (and nasty) effect on individuals, work- places, families, and whole communities. Whilst no shots are fired nor gas ovens ignited, downsizing frequently has a huge and traumatic impact on those touched by it. Actors performing downsizing may do so, not because they enjoy inflicting pain on others, nor because they are mind- lessly doing what they are told. Ac- tors may come to believe that a "lean" organization is a "healthy" organization, and that efficiency is "good." The impacts of the management theory industry, managerialism, and economic rationalism have been widely documented and are largely responsible for shaping such beliefs and sub- sequent behaviors. Euphemisms sub- merge the reality, as sacked workers are "downsized," "separated," "unas- signed," and "proactively outplaced" (Micklethwait and Wooldridge 1996, 11). Indeed, the human cost of managerialism is rarely counted (Rees and Rodley 1995).

Adams and Balfour also articulate the problematic but common practice of equating the law with ethical be-


havior (165). They argue that personal conscience is subordinated to the structures of authority, with conscience being regarded negatively as subjective and personal, whilst structures of authority are objective and public (166) and, thus, more deserv- ing. They note, when referring to the Holocaust, the problem of familiar and commonplace micro-level processes getting out of hand, becoming embed- ded in habit, routine, and tradition (58). Similarly, with workplace discrimina- tion and harassment, one finds that those who witness discriminatory practices become desensitized. The process of sanitizing descriptions and representations of fear is also commonplace in organizations (Fulop and Rifkin 1997, 57).

For those who dare to disagree or voice dissent, concentration camp life and organizational whistleblowing take on chilling resemblances. The "catastrophic end" (78) of Dora Con- centration Camp depicted the SS response to acts of resistance. These ranged from a series of public hang- ings, to the execution of all those who lived in the barracks with the rebels (53 Russian prisoners, nearly all of whom were killed after trying to es- cape). Similarly, the repercussions of voicing objections to workplace dis- crimination or violence can result in public character assassinations, threats, and victimization (of the com- plainants and their colleagues), as well as ill health, nervous breakdowns, paranoia, and debilitating fear (Fulop and Rifkin 1997, 48-50).

Finally, Adams and Balfour draw our attention to several important policy-related fictions that have rami- fications beyond PA. They suggest that technically rational solutions to messy problems may yield "policies of destruction" (136). The myth that policy will solve our administrative problems and that administrators will be held accountable for their actions (136) is underpinned by rationalist assumptions that solutions and satisfactory conclu-

sions can be reached, one just needs to arrive at the "right" policy. They have vivified the notion that cause and effect are shifting, chaotic, and unpre- dictable constructs and that, sometimes, the solutions themselves produce serendipitous consequences (137). Looking beyond the horror of Auschwitz and Dora, one can see that, sometimes, the actual outcomes of policy intended to assist and protect those marginalized in organizations produce unintended effects. For example, despite the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the proportion of individuals with disabilities who are working actually declined between 1986 and 1994 (Klimoski and Donohue 1997).

Some Suggestions from the Edge of the World

Following are, hopefully, some con- structive suggestions that might assist with the concept of administrative evil continuing to flourish. First, Adams and Balfour briefly comment that their arguments about administrative evil may hold for other professions (5). Contemplation of the "professional evil" (if that is what one might term it) that might smolder in organizations and societies is another powerful and provocative milieu ripe for exploration. For example, how might one regard the withholding of diagnostic or prognostic information from patients by medical practitioners-the code of silence (Konner 1993, 5)-which has, until very recently, been routine in the West? What could be more evil, more threatening to a person's rights than to conceal information that is at once so momentous and so personal? Atten- tion might also be turned to the symbolic (and magical) functions of "white coats, antiseptic environments, ambulances and insurance" (Illich 1975, 53) in their capacity to mask or construct evil outcomes, especially where dependence and power relations are known to exist.

Second, Adams and Balfour have raised, on a number of occasions, the question of modernity and its influence on administrative predicaments. They ask, "How is it that we appear unable to think our way out of modernity suf- ficiently to produce anything other than ephemeral results? " (50).

The absence of any commentary from Adams and Balfour on the question of what (if any) relevance the postmodernist perspective might offer would seem to be a small, but ger- mane, oversight. One of the positive outcomes of adopting a postmodern perspective is the pursuit of justice for those who are marginalized (Farmer 1997; 1998). For example, Farmer's (1998) concept, "Anti-Administra- tion," whilst not precluding a mod- ernist perspective, offers one approach to the problems of affording justice in organizational life, especially for those who are marginalized. Given Adams and Balfour's concern for the Nazi murder of "outsiders" and "undesirables" (55), one might at least consider the possible benefits that a postmodern perspective may offer. Further, given the emphasis made in Unmasking Administrative Evil on the profound and immutable implications of modernity (49), especially the critique of the problematic reliance on purely scientific endeavor and technical-rational thought, one would think that mention of the path from modernity to modernism, postmodernism, and poststructur- alism (see Crotty 1998, 184 ff) might be of value. Some comment on the disappearance of consensus (Connor 1989, 10), analyses of knowledge and power (Foucault 1961; Foucault 1977), and discussions of the postmodernist suspicion of the metanarratives of modern life (Lyotard 1979) would also seem most apposite.

Finally, as an Australian author who regularly writes from the "edge of the world" (as defined by Clegg, Linstead, and Sewell 1999), Adams and


Balfour's focus on North American PA is regarded as something of a problem, especially given that the Holocaust took place in Europe. Whilst not de- tracting from the essence of their work, the need to recognize and celebrate difference and diversity in thought, experience, and intellectual endeavor cannot be underestimated. For Adams and Balfour to avoid being viewed as North American ethnocentrics, they should, at the very least, expand their historical purview to include other areas of the Western world. Fortunately, this oversight does little to diminish the value of this work.

The Question of Credibility Before concluding, one is com-

pelled to provide a vigorous retort to Dubnick's relentless and sometimes vitriolic attack on Unmasking Admin- istrative Evil's worth, specifically in terms of its scholarship and credibility. Most of us would recognize that social researchers choose from alternative approaches, each with their own set of philosophical assumptions, principles, and stances on how to conduct research (Neuman 1997, 60). How- ever, the issue, according to Dubnick, is whether Adams and Balfour have presented their evidence "in a credible way - that is, according to basic standards of credible scholarship."

If one accepts that there is some worth to interpretive, critical, and postmodern perspectives and paradigms, and does not accept positivism or idealized logic as determinative, a definitive set of "standards of credible scholarship" would seem an elusive goal. However, Dubnick appears un- concerned by the ongoing existence of the "positivist challenge" (Sarantakos 1993, 4), as he assures his reader, with breathtaking certainty, of the profun- dity of logic, especially "if-then" logic, asserting that a credible claim calls for qualifiers and warrants. Perhaps ironi- cally, Dubnick's certainty reminds one of the elusive nature of truth:

It is only minor decisions, upon which nothing of great importance hangs, that can proceed serenely from such detached deliberation: the genuine, critical dilemmas of the individual's life-and to Kierkegaard individuals alone were real-are not solved by intellectual exploration of facts nor of the laws of thinking about them. Their reso- lutions emerge through conflicts and tumults in the soul, anxieties, ago- nies, perilous adventures of faith into unknown territories. The reality of every one's existence proceeds thus from the "inwardness" of man [sic], not from anything that the mind can codify, for objectified knowledge is always at one or more removed from the truth. "Truth," said Kierkegaard, "is subjectivity" (Mairet 1948/1973, 6).

The facts and truths that Dubnick de- sires are a rare commodity. Research- ers' interpretations and bias are worthy and important parts of the research process. What one ought to do is to acknowledge one's limitations and seek an approach that helps us to answer our research question (Crotty 1998, 216). Dubnick has, unquestion- ably, reignited the debate: "We can apply some idealized logic (such as, logical positivism) to claims made by our colleagues, but in the process we are likely to find ourselves reestablishing and reinforcing the same epistemological and methodological divisions that have plagued our field for the past half-century."

For some, such divisions (which I would call distinctions) are not a plague, but accepted and necessary paradigmatic constituents. It is widely recognized that social research is "no longer a uniform body of theory and research based on positivism only, as it was in the past, but a body of diverse methodologies with diverse theoretical backgrounds and diverse methods and techniques, all of which appear to be considered equally acceptable, equally valid and equally legitimate" (Sarantakos 1993, 4).

Recognizing the potential difficulties of alienating those not enamoured with logical positivism, Dubnick resolves the problem with the following advice: "A more productive approach involves the application of standards derived from a 'working logic' relevant to the scholarly functions of the field." Work- ing logic, he argues, uses standards applied in real life conditions, with credibility being determined by practitioners who rely upon their own "working logic" to determine what is acceptable or not acceptable. "Winning" administrative ideas, it is suggested, are rarely profound, being acceptable as repackaged and relabeled versions of an idea previously advanced many times before.

The recommendation that a piece of work or a new idea ought to be judged only by the accepted standards of a field is most disquieting. One might ask, on what basis might any new idea gain a toehold under such anti-intellectual conditions? Whilst not eschewing the value of the practical, one must never underestimate the problems of ideology (indeed, institu- tional or academic pelmanism) when it comes to the study of the workings of public (or private) organizations. If one agrees to accepted standards as Dubnick suggests, one might never expect the individual practitioner or the field to grow.

Finally, Dubnick claims that standards of responsibility are field dependent, set forth as normative expectations regarding everything from data gathering procedures to styles of presentation. I disagree. As a writer from the edge of the world, I am continu- ally confronted with differences in such expectations, within and between individuals, fields, paradigms, cultural settings, and, most obviously, journals. Certainly, the positivist, managerialist, empirical perspective has a notable stranglehold in many management, organizational, and public management arenas, but it would seem that


such expectations are shifting and, in- creasingly, open to challenge.

This reader is not left wondering about the contribution of Unmasking Administrative Evil. I applaud the efforts of those prepared to proffer their ideas (with all the attendant risks that this implies), especially those who re- sist the continued nagging for data and determinism, and who encourage discussion, thought and debate. Un- masking Administrative Evil is a step forward for all scholars concerned with the machinations of organizational life, offering what must be the essence of scholarly work-a new idea and a new vantage point from which to view it.

Margaret H. Vickers, Ph.D., is a lecturer with the University of Western Sydney, Australia. She pub- lishes widely on the subject of trauma in organizational life, including her forthcoming Silent Voices: Memoirs of Life and Work with Unseen Chronic Illness (Routledge, London, 2001). She is also on the editorial board of the Employee Re- sponsibilities and Rights Journal. Email: [email protected]

References

Adams, Guy B., and Danny L. Balfour. 1998. Unmasking Administrative Evil. Thousand Oaks, CA, London, and New Delhi: Sage Publications.

Clegg, Stewart, Stephen Linstead, and Graham Sewell. 1999. Only Penguins: A Polemic on Organization Theory from the Edge of the World. The Aus- tralian and New Zealand Academy of Management Conference, Hobart, Tas- mania, Australia, 1-4 Dec, 1-21.

Cohen, M. D., J. G. March, and J. P. Olsen. 1972. A Garbage Can Model of Orga- nizational Choice. Administrative Sci- ence Quarterly 17(1): 1-25.

Connor, Steven. 1989. Postmodernist Cul- ture: An Introduction to Theories of the Contemporary. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd.

Crotty, Michael. 1998. The Foundations of Social Research: Meaning and Per- spective in the Research Process. Sydney, Australia: Allen and Unwin.

Dubnick, Mel. 2000. The Case for Admin- istrative Evil: A Critique. Public Ad- ministration Review 60(5): 464-74.

Farmer, David J. 1997. The Postmodern Turn and the Socratic Gadfly. In Postmodernism, "Reality" and Public Administration: A Discourse, edited by Hugh T. Miller and Charles J. Fox. Burke, Virginia: Chatelaine Press.

.1998. Introduction: Listening to Other Voices. In Papers on the Art of Anti-Administration, edited by David John Farmer. Burke, Virginia: Chat- elaine Press.

Foucault, Michel. 1961. Madness and Civilization. London: Tavistock Publi- cations.

. 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books.

Fulop, Liz, and William Rifkin. 1997. Representing Fear in Learning in Or- ganizations. Management Learning 28(1): 45-63.

Illich, Ivan. 1975. Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health. London: Marion Boyars.

Klimoski, Richard, and Lisa Donahue. 1997. HR Strategies for Integrating Individuals with Disabilities into the Work Place. Human Resource Manage- ment Review 7(1): 109-38.

Konner, Melvin. 1993. The Trouble with Medicine. Sydney, Australia: ABC En- terprises.

Lyotard, Jean-Francois. 1979. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Mairet, Philip. 1948/1973. Introduction. In Existentialism and Humanism, edited by Jean-Paul Sartre. London: Eyre Methuen Limited.

Micklethwait, John, and Adrian Wooldridge. 1996. The Witch Doctors: What the Management Gurus are Say- ing, Why it Matters and How to Make Sense of It. London: Mandarin Paper- backs.

Neuman, W. Lawrence. 1997. Social Re- search Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. 3rd ed. Bos- ton: Allyn and Bacon.

Orlando, John. 1999. The Fourth Wave: The Ethics of Corporate Downsizing. Business Ethics Quarterly 9(2): 295- 314.

Rees, Stuart, and Gordon Rodley. 1995. The Human Costs of Managerialism: Advocating the Recovery of Humanity.

Leichhardt, Sydney, Australia: Pluto Press Australia.

Rittel, Horst W. J., and Melvin Webber. 1973. Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning. Policy Sciences 4(2): 155- 69.

Sarantakos, Sotirios. 1993. Social Re- search. South Melbourne: MacMillan Education Australia Pty Ltd.

Unmasking Administrative Evil: The Book and Its Critics Hubert G. Locke, University of Washington

In 1987, in preparation for a paper that was delivered at the International Conference on the Holocaust at Oxford the following year, I mailed a brief

questionnaire to a sample of prominent names in the field of public administration and public policy. My mailing list consisted of a random selection of authors of some of the standard intro-

ductory texts in the field, several dozen

prominent names from the membership of the American Society of Public Ad- ministration, a dozen or so authors of

essays in the Journal of Public Policy and Management and, for good mea- sure, a few well-known academics who are members of the National Academy of Public Administration. I asked this

group whether, in the course of their

teaching courses in public administration, they ever had occasion to make reference to the slaughter of the Euro-

pean Jewish populace that occurred under German National Socialism dur-

ing World War II, whether any of their research or publications focused on this

topic and whether, in their opinion, the

topic had any relevance for the field of

public administration. I received a gratifying number of

responses to my informal inquiry. As I recall, in all but three cases, the re-

spondents indicated they had never


had occasion to refer to the Holocaust [as it is generally termed] in their teaching. No one noted the event as an arena of research interest. A surprisingly large number acknowledged that the Holocaust does likely have relevance for the study of public administration; a few respondents expressed some embarrassment that they had not given attention to the question at some earlier point in their work. One respon- dent even thanked me for raising the issue. For the sake of those who insist on having something to count before any assertion can have validity, I should underscore the non-empirical nature of my inquiry. It was an unsci- entific but, as it turned out, quite re- vealing sample of academic leaders in the field which confirmed my assumption that the issue of the Holocaust- a decade and a half ago-had an in- significant impact, to put the matter charitably, on the field of public administration and policy.

A decade later, Guy Adams and Danny Balfour produced the first American study to take up the question of the Holocaust and the problem of public administration and public policy. The primary focus of their inquiry turns out to be public administration-rather than public policy- although it is virtually impossible to follow their argument without recognizing its equally significant implications for public policy, as well. That argument is clearly and cogently set forth: one of the hallmarks of the modern era, the authors assert, is a certain scientific-analytical mind-set and a belief in technological progress that can be termed technical rationality. Technical rationality, in turn, has come to have as one of its by-products what Adams and Balfour call administrative evil-a phenomenon which is both depicted in and masked (hence the title of the book) by the fact that many people in moder organizations lack the capacity to recognize when they are "knowingly and deliberately inflict[ing] pain and suffering on other

human beings" (xix). This self-decep- tion, aided and abetted by the fact that moder organizations compartmental- ize roles and functions and diffuse individual responsibilities, leads to one of the great moral inversions of our time, of which the Holocaust has been one of the twentieth century's principal manifestations.

Anyone who is in the slightest degree acquainted with the events that transpired in Europe between 1933 and 1945-particularly the fateful years of the war itself (1939-45), will recognize the extent to which the Ho- locaust is, in fact, a paradigm of the Adams-Balfour thesis. We know enough, and in sufficient detail, regarding the administrative and organizational features of the Nazi State and especially regarding the machinery of annihilation that-after a period of implementation-by-groping about-was finally put in place to assert that the policy of endlosung-the so-called "final solution" of the Jew- ish question-was nothing if not technical rationality at its most efficient and effective best. It is especially ironic that the final solution should take place as the official policy of the nation that first gave both theoretical form and professional substance to the field of public administration!

The concept of evil, as even Adams and Balfour acknowledge, is one that does not rest easily with professors and practitioners in the field of public administration, in spite of the fact that evil is not a foreign idea in the social sciences. Evil-administrative or otherwise-would seem to be a term with which poets and theologians tussle, not serious scientists. The term evil would appear to lack the empirical precision necessary for a meaningful description of human behavior. It certainly presents an embarrassment to a field that prides itself on its objective analysis and understanding of the processes by which the impartial, even-handed, efficient management of government and its policies are carried out.

To the average (in contrast to the academic) mind, however, administrative evil is the one (perhaps the only) word that authentically describes the process by which some five to six million people were systematically rousted from their homes and either marched to the edge of their villages where they were shot or, if they were from urban areas, herded into ghettoes, transported to killing centers, and gassed, their bodies reduced to ashes and their existence obliterated from the face of the earth.

To examine this process as it was carried out by German civil servants acting on behalf of a government which seized power and following the conventional rules of bureaucratic management is to witness, for many, the moral outrage of the twentieth century. Why, it may be asked, did it take American scholars in the field of public administration over fifty years to finally acknowledge the field's role in the unfolding events of the Holocaust? And why, once done, should that ac- knowledgment come under such fierce attack?

As to the first question, it turns out that public administration is only slightly more tardy in its self-examination than a number of other professional fields, many of which have yet to look at themselves as professions- in contrast with accounts of their fields written by practitioners or historians. Alan Beyerchen (1977) wrote an ex- cellent analysis of the response of the German physics community to the Third Reich. Robert Ericksen's (1985) penetrating study of the theological faculty at the University of Goettingen is an important part of an exhaustive examination of the role of clergy and religious intellectuals during the Third Reich. George Annas and Michael Grodin, members of the medical faculty at Boston University published a study in 1992 of medical experimentation under the Nazis, following Rob- ert Jay Lipton's monumental study, Nazi Doctors (1986). So it has only


been in the last quarter of the past century that scholars have begun to take intensive looks at their fields; the results have been uniformly negative. The fields of law and business have yet to undertake such inquiries, while the German academic community as a whole has totally escaped any serious examination of its behavior during the Third Reich. Not surprisingly, academics have looked at the behavior of other professional communities under German National Socialism; they have not looked at themselves as a group.

So we have Adams and Balfour to thank, at the very least, for opening up an issue and a theme for public administration that every profession should be obliged to consider and that several have yet to do. Professionally, Adams and Balfour have received appropriate expressions of gratitude and esteem in the form of the coveted Louis Brownlow Award of the Na- tional Academy of Public Administra- tion (1998) and the Best Book Award of the Academy of Management of the same year. Academically, it is a different story.

Melvin Dubnick, whose critique appears in this issue of PAR, notes the reception of Unmasking Administra- tive Evil as "popular literature" but asks the academically lethal question: is it scholarship? In an extended analysis of the criteria for what he terms "legitimacy as scholarship," Dubnick finds that Adams and Balfour have failed to meet the standards for a cat- egory of scholarship he describes as argumentative and rhetorical. In brief, Dubnick faults Adams and Balfour for advancing claims about the phenomenon of administrative evil that are unsupported by "the kind of evidentiary backing one might expect for such a controversial analysis." In essence, he finds that they have not engaged in "responsible argumentation."

Labeling someone's work as popular literature, as everyone in the academy knows, is a professional kiss-of-

death. What really disturbs Dubnick, however, is the use by Adams and Balfour of a notion or concept that, in Dubnick's view, has no validity as a "historical force in explaining social events." "In an extended search of re- cent social science," he writes, "I could find no credible scholarship relying on the existence of evil as a real and effective force in the world." This assertion obliges Dubnick to review some of the scholarly work on the Holocaust which, in one way or another, has tried to come to terms with this very idea of evil. In the process, he finds fault with some of the semi- nal studies in Holocaust literature and ends up commending, as a "model" of scholarship that Adams and Balfour might have followed, a work that nearly every Holocaust scholar of note considers to be hopelessly flawed.

One suspects that Dubnick's real problem with Unmasking Administra- tive Evil is its advancement of a notion that, for him, lacks empirical rigor and specificity-a frequent lament heard regarding much of early writings in the field of public administration. For a half- century now, the field has been strug- gling to gain, as all the social sciences have, increased levels of scientific re- spectability of the sort enjoyed by the physical and biological sciences. Al- though most of its contemporary theo- reticians would demur from the assessment, the field has essentially followed the formula advanced by Leonard White 75 years ago who, as George Gordon noted, "captured the conventional wis- dom of administrative theory: politics and administration were separate, management could be studied scientifically to discover the best methods of opera- tion; public administration was capable of becoming a value-free science; and politically neutral administration should be focused on attainment of economy and efficiency in government, and nothing more" (1986, 23). In the process, public administration has found it easier

why the field has so little to say that is useful about problems of race inAmerica and, in all likelihood, the reason that the Holocaust has been essentially ignored by public administration academicians.

One reads Adams and Balfour's work, and the reaction of Dubnick to it, and is reminded of the oft-repeated observation that if contemporary social scientists had been present at the crucifixion, they would have wanted to count the number of nails used in the cross before determining whether the event had any social significance. The carefully planned and systematically implemented slaughter of close to six million people who represented the wrong race, by a government of one of the most socially and culturally advanced nations of the Western world, will continue to confound the moder mind. I, for one, am grateful for every legitimate attempt to come to grips with what occurred and with its implications for our time and the future.

Hubert G. Locke is John and Marguerite Corbally Professor and Dean Emeritus of the Danieli. Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Wash- ington. Email: [email protected]

References

Annas, George J., and Michael A. Grodin, eds. 1992. The Nazi Doctors and The Nuremberg Code: Human Rights in Human Experimentation. New York: Oxford University Press.

Beyerchen, Alan D. 1977. Scientists under Hitler: Politics and the Physics Community in the Third Reich. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Ericksen, Robert. 1985. Theologians under Hitler: Gerhard Kittel, Paul Althens, and Emmanuel Hirsch. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Gordon, George. 1986. Public Adminis- tration in America, Third Edition. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Lipton, Robert Jay. 1986. Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. New York: Basic Books.

to steer around untidy social phenomena and messy social problems. This is

480 Public Administration Review ? September/October 2000, Vol. 60, No. 5

The Authors' Response Guy B. Adams, University of Missouri-Columbia Danny L. Balfour, Grand Valley State University

We are grateful to our three inter- locutors for all the effort they devoted to their reviews of our book. Each deserves more of a response than we can give here, but we will attempt to address at least some of the key issues they have raised. Each review takes us in a different direction. Professor Locke underscores the importance of the Holocaust and administrative evil for our understanding of public administration, public policy, and other professions. Professor Vickers, writing from "the edge of the world," pushes us to consider new and broader perspectives on and applications of the concept of administrative evil. Profes- sor Dubnick, on the other hand, finds little of value in the book, questioning whether our work can be considered "credible" scholarship.

Both Locke and Vickers challenge us to look beyond the confines of traditional public administration and to explore the implications of administrative evil for professions and organizations in the broader political economy. In the book, we only begin to explore the implications of administrative evil for the professions (a future project we have in mind), but we do hope that the book furthers the kind of self-examination that, as Professor Locke points out, has only begun in public administration and other professional fields.

We agree that postmodern perspectives can bring a deeper analysis to the topic, especially in terms of identify- ing and giving voice to marginalized populations ("outsiders" and "undesirables"), an area in which Professor Vickers has already made a contribution. Her examples, especially

downsizing and whistleblowing, point toward areas of organizational-level analysis that might be illuminated in new ways by the concept of administrative evil. We might ask whether and to what extent contemporary organizations are creating new classes of unwanted people, thereby expanding the ranks of the "surplus populations," who are the most likely victims of administrative evil. Professor Vickers also reminds us, quite rightly, that American examples alone (apart from the Holocaust) do not do justice to the problems highlighted by the concept of administrative evil when considered in a global context.

In Professor Dubnick's review, of all the most insulting words that can be directed at a scholarly argument, "journalistic" is just about the only one not used; however, it is implied. Our book and its argument are labeled as "popular" and "rhetoric." Our ethics are questioned; and we are accused of choosing lower standards than those required for scholarly credibility. In- terestingly, Dubnick then attributes the book's generally favorable reception in part to the authors' reputation (pre- sumably built in some other way than the attributes just ascribed to us). Per- haps we should be flattered by this high regard for our reputation. How- ever, it carries with it the derogatory and erroneous assertion that readers in the public administration community are more persuaded by an author's reputation than by the substance of a book's argument. Occam's razor, as cutting as it often is, would seem a relief after exposure to Dubnick's hatchet.

Professor Dubnick has constructed a plausible enough review, but one which so caricatures the arguments and concepts in Unmasking Adminis- trative Evil that, in the end, it seems to be about issues only loosely related to our book. Professor Dubnick's review contains his thoughts and reactions about a certain kind of research, an implicit defense of a fundamentally

uncritical public administration scholarship, and a remarkably distorted view of the meaning of evil. In effect, Professor Dubnick develops a caricature based on his novel interpretation of parts of the book, and then proceeds to attack the caricature. Were the caricature an accurate portrayal of the book's arguments, many might agree with much of what he sets forth. But, since he misses the point so badly in several respects, we must respectfully request readers to judge for themselves by reading the book.

A passage from Hirsch (1995) may provide some insight into Professor Dubnick's discomfort with our linkage of public administration with genocide and administrative evil:

Genocide is a controversial topic that may very well pit the researcher against the state. If the nation-state has been the major perpetrator of genocide or some other form of atrocity, then any researcher inves- tigating this topic must begin to ask critical questions about the nature of the state in general and his or her state in particular. Social scientists are sometimes reluctant to raise critical questions because serious contemplation of them may force the scientists to evaluate or reevalu- ate their principles or their connection to their government. (75-6)

This passage reflects what we mean when we say that we want to get beyond the superficial critiques (bureaucrat bashing) of public administration, and consider instead the more fundamental issues raised by remembering the role of public administration in state-sponsored dehumanization and destruction. The concept of administrative evil provides a means for making basic issues of human rights and dignity an integral part of researching and evaluating public policies and administrative behavior. It is not necessary or perhaps even desirable for all of a field's research to take a critical stance, but clearly we risk disaster if none of it does. Our hope is that, by


beginning the analysis of administrative evil, enough critical scholarship will ensue to at least give some pause before vulnerable peoples are again victimized by public policies.

Guy B. Adams is a professor and associate director of the Graduate School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is coeditor in chief of the American Review of Public Adminis- tration. His research interests are in the areas of public administration history and theory, public service ethics, and organization studies. He has over 50 scholarly publications, including books, book chapters, and articles in the top national public administration journals. He earned his doc- torate in public administration in 1977 from The George Washington University in Washington, DC. Email: [email protected]

Danny L. Balfour is an associate professor and director of the School of Public and Nonprofit Ad- ministration at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is the managing editor of the Journal of Public Affairs Education. His research and teaching interests are in the areas of organizational theory and behavior, social policy, public service ethics, and the Holocaust. He has published more than 20 book chapters and scholarly articles in the top national public administration journals. He earned his Ph.D. in public administration in 1990 from The Florida State University Email: [email protected]

References

Hirsch, H. 1995. Genocide and the Poli- tics of Memory. Chapel Hill, NC: Uni- versity of North Carolina Press.

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Dubnick 2000C (Case for Administrative Evil)

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