TY - JOUR

T1 - Career Pressures and Organizational Evil

T2 - A Novel Perspective on the Study of Organized Violence

AU - Scharpf, Adam

AU - Gläßel, Christian

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - Dictators, rebel commanders, and mafia bosses frequently delegate gruesome and immoral tasks to their subordinates. However, most individuals want to avoid such work. This analytical essay proposes an institutional logic to understand how dictatorships, insurgent organizations, and criminal gangs get their evil work done nonetheless. We argue that common features of organizations produce mundane career pressures that incentivize subordinates to zealously execute reprehensible tasks. Subordinates may come under pressure for six distinct reasons: incompetence, misconduct, origin, isolation, organizational backlog, and shrinkage. Superiors, in turn, can exploit that pressured subordinates hope to improve their prospects for advancement by loyally executing the organization’s evil tasks. Empirically, we illustrate how Nazi Germany utilized each of the suggested career pressures to staff the units in charge of the Holocaust. We highlight that our logic might also apply to less extreme forms of organizational evil. Together, the essay offers a novel perspective to demystify radical behavior in state and non-state organizations with important implications for our understanding of transnational terrorist violence and underworld crimes.

AB - Dictators, rebel commanders, and mafia bosses frequently delegate gruesome and immoral tasks to their subordinates. However, most individuals want to avoid such work. This analytical essay proposes an institutional logic to understand how dictatorships, insurgent organizations, and criminal gangs get their evil work done nonetheless. We argue that common features of organizations produce mundane career pressures that incentivize subordinates to zealously execute reprehensible tasks. Subordinates may come under pressure for six distinct reasons: incompetence, misconduct, origin, isolation, organizational backlog, and shrinkage. Superiors, in turn, can exploit that pressured subordinates hope to improve their prospects for advancement by loyally executing the organization’s evil tasks. Empirically, we illustrate how Nazi Germany utilized each of the suggested career pressures to staff the units in charge of the Holocaust. We highlight that our logic might also apply to less extreme forms of organizational evil. Together, the essay offers a novel perspective to demystify radical behavior in state and non-state organizations with important implications for our understanding of transnational terrorist violence and underworld crimes.

KW - Faculty of Social Sciences

KW - bureaucracy

KW - hierarchy

KW - promotions

KW - recruitment

KW - terrorism

KW - crime

KW - Holocaust

U2 - 10.1093/isr/viac009

DO - 10.1093/isr/viac009

M3 - Journal article

VL - 24

JO - International Studies Review

JF - International Studies Review

SN - 1521-9488

IS - 3

M1 - viac009

ER -