Unmasking Administrative Evil

Danny L. Balfour is Professor of Public Administration at Grand Valley State University, USA, where he teaches public management, ethics, organization theory, strategic management, and history of the Holocaust. He has published extensively in public administration journals and books, served as book review editor for Public Administration Review, was the founding managing editor of the Journal of Public Affairs Education, and serves on the editorial board of several public affairs journals. Guy B. Adams is Professor Emeritus of Public Affairs in the Harry S Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri, USA. He has more than 60 publications, including books, book chapters, and articles in top national and international public administration journals, and served for many years as the co-editor-in-chief of the American Review of Public Administration. In 2017, Adams received the Dwight Waldo Award from the American Society of Public Administration (ASPA) and the Lifetime Achievement Award from ASPA’s Section on Ethics and Integrity in Governance.Ashley E. Nickels is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Kent State University, USA. As an interdisciplinary scholar, her research focuses on issues of power, privilege, and democratic participation in the fields of urban politics, nonprofit management, and public administration, and she is highly influenced by her years working in feminist community activism. Dr. Nickels is the author of the forthcoming book, Power Participation and Protest in Flint, Michigan and co-editor (with Jason D. Rivera) of Community Development and Public Administration Theory (Routledge, 2018). She also serves on the board of editors for the Journal of Public Affairs Education, and as chair-elect of ARNOVA's section on Community and Grassroots Associations.

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction and OverviewPart I: What is Administrative Evil?Chapter 1: The Dynamics of Evil and Administrative EvilChapter 2: Compliance, Technical Rationality, and Administrative EvilPart II: History and CasesChapter 3: Administrative Evil Unmasked: The Holocaust and Public ServiceChapter 4: Administrative Evil in the 21st Century: Abu Ghraib, Moral Inversion, and Torture PolicyChapter 5: Public Policy, Administrative Evil, and Surplus PopulationsChapter 6. The Flint Water Disaster: From "Emergency Management" to Administrative EvilPart III: The Future of Ethics in Praetorian TimesChapter 7: Administrative Evil and Public Ethics in Praetorian TimesChapter 8: Towards a New Context for Public Ethics: Three Approaches9: Afterword: Expiating Evil and Administrative EvilAppendix A: Foreword to the Third Edition, Philip G. ZimbardoAppendix B: Foreword to the Second Edition, Charles B. PerrowAppendix C: Foreword to the First Edition, Curtis VentrissReferencesIndexAbout the Authors

"This book is indispensable to the field of public administration; a discipline which labored far too long under the illusion that morals were somebody else’s business. The nearly effortless way that administrative agencies can slide into routine practices that wreak havoc requires our constant attention. If we don’t learn from what the authors have to say in this book, we are consigned to more tragedies like those they describe." Frank Anechiarico, Hamilton College, USA"The field of public administration rightly salutes public service as a normative good. However, this indispensable volume also rightly reminds us that public bureaucracies are capable of immense evil. Now in its fifth edition, Unmasking Administrative Evil should be required reading in master of public administration and policy programs and among civil servants everywhere."David Rosenbloom, American University, USA