Milgram, Genocide and Bureaucracy: A Post-Weberian Perspective

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Volume 5, Issue 2

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Milgram, Genocide and Bureaucracy: A Post-Weberian Perspective

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Author(s): Augustine Brannigan ¹ , Gina Perry ²

Publication date (Print, pub): 1 October 2016

Journal: State Crime Journal

Publisher: Pluto Journals

Keywords: banality of evil, iron cage of rationality, Milgram's obedience research, Nazi slave labour, polycratic bureaucracy, political responsibility (Arendt)

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Journal ID (doi): 10.13169

Journal ID (publisher-id): statecrime

Title: State Crime Journal

Publisher: Pluto Journals

ISSN (Print): 20466056

ISSN (Electronic): 20466064

Publication date (Print, pub): 1 October 2016

Volume: 5

Issue: 2

Pages: 287-305

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[1 ] University of Calgary;

[2 ] University of Melbourne;

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Publisher ID: statecrime.5.2.0287

DOI: 10.13169/statecrime.5.2.0287

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References

Allen, M.T. ( 2002) The Business of Genocide: The SS, Slave Labor, and the Concentration Camps . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Allen, M.T. ( 2005) “Introduction: A Bureaucratic Holocaust – Towards a New Consensus”, in G.D. Feldman and W. Seibel, eds, Networks of Nazi Persecution: Bureaucracy, Business and the Organization of the Holocaust . New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 259– 268.
Arendt, H. ( 2003 [ 1964]) “Personal Responsibility under Dictatorship”, in Responsibility and Judgment . New York: Shocken Books, pp. 17– 48.
Askenasy, H. ( 1978) Are We All Nazis ? Secaucus: Lyle Stuart.
Bartov, O. ( 2001) The Eastern Front 1941–45, German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare (2nd ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Baumrind, D. ( 1964) “Some Thoughts on Ethics of Research: After Reading Milgram's ‘Behavioral Study of Obedience’”, American Psychologist 19( 6): 421– 423.
Baumrind, D. ( 1985) “Research Using Intentional Deception: Ethical Issues Revisited”, American Psychologist 40( 2): 165– 174.
Berkowitz, L. ( 1999) “Evil Is More Than Banal: Situationism and the Concept of Evil”, Personality and Social Psychology Review 3( 3): 246– 253.
Brannigan, A. ( 1997) “The Postmodern Experiment: Science and Ontology in Experimental Social Psychology”, The British Journal of Sociology 48( 4): 594– 610.
Brannigan, A. ( 1998) “Criminology and the Holocaust: Xenophobia, Evolution and Genocide”, Crime & Delinquency 44( 2): 257– 276.
Brannigan, A. ( 2013) Beyond the Banality of Evil: Criminology and Genocide . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Browning, C. ( 1992) Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland . New York: HarperCollins. Afterword 1998.
Burger, J., Girgis, Z.M. and Manning, C.C. ( 2011) “In Their Own Words: Explaining Obedience to Authority through an Examination of Participants' Comments”, Social Psychological & Personality Science 2: 460– 466.
Charny, I.W. ( 1982) How Can We Commit the Unthinkable? Genocide, the Human Cancer . Boulder: Westview Press.
Darley, J.M. ( 1992) “Social Organization for the Production of Evil”, Psychological Inquiry 3: 199– 218.
Darley, J.M. ( 1995) “Constructive and Destructive Obedience: A Taxonomy of Principal Agent Relationships”, Journal of Social Issues 51 ( 3): 125– 154.
Darley, J.M. ( 1999) “Methods for the Study of Evil-Doing Actions”, Personality and Social Psychology Review 3: 269– 275.
Dicks, H.V. ( 1972) Licensed Mass Murder: A Socio-Psychological Study of Some SS Killers . London: Heinemann Educational for Sussex University.
Erlikman, V. ( 2004) “Soviet War Casualties Cited in World War II Casualties”. Wikipedia. Available online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties (accessed 1 June 2016).
Fenigstein, A. ( 1998a) “Reconceptualizing the Obedience of the Perpetrators”, in D.G. Shilling, ed., Lessons and Legacies, Vol. II: Teaching the Holocaust in a Changing World . Evanston: Northwestern University Press, pp. 55– 84.
Fenigstein, A. ( 1998b) “Were Obedience Pressures a Factor in the Holocaust?” Analyse & Kritik 20( 1): 54– 73.
Fromm, E. ( 1973) The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness . London: Jonathan Cape.
Gibson, S. ( 2011) “Milgram's Obedience Experiments: A Rhetorical Analysis”, British Journal of Social Psychology 52: 290– 309.
Gibson, S. ( 2013) “‘The Last Possible Resort’: A Forgotten Prod and the In Situ Standardization of Stanley Milgram's Voice-Feedback Condition”, History of Psychology 16( 3): 177– 194.
Goldhagen, D. ( 1996) Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust . New York: Knopf. Afterword 1997.
Griggs, R.A. and Whitehead, G.I. ( 2015a) “Coverage of Milgram's Obedience Experiments in Social Psychology Textbooks: Where Have All the Criticisms Gone?” Teaching Psychology 42( 4): 315– 322.
Griggs, R.A. and Whitehead, G.I. ( 2015b) “Coverage of Recent Criticisms of Milgram's Obedience Experiments in Introductory Social Psychology Textbooks”, Theory & Psychology 25( 5): 564– 580.
Gruner, W. ( 2005) “Local Initiatives, Central Coordination: German Municipal Administration and the Holocaust”, in G.D. Feldman and W. Seibel, eds, Networks of Nazi Persecution: Bureaucracy, Business and the Organization of the Holocaust . New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 269– 294.
Helm, C. and Morelli, M. ( 1979) “Stanley Milgram and the Obedience Experiment: Authority, Legitimacy and Human Action”, Political Theory 7: 321– 345.
Hoffman, E., Myerberg, N.R. and Morawski, J.G. ( 2015) “Acting Otherwise: Resistance, Agency and Subjectivities in Milgram's Studies of Obedience”, Theory & Psychology 25( 4): 670– 689.
Lang, J. ( 2014) “Against Obedience: Hannah Arendt's Overlooked Challenge to Social-Psychological Explanations of Mass Atrocity”, Theory & Psychology 24( 5): 649– 667.
Lutsky, N. ( 1995) “When Is ‘Obedience’ Obedience? Conceptual and Historical Commentary”, Journal of Social Issues 51( 3): 55– 65.
Mandel, D.R. ( 1998) “The Obedience Alibi: Milgram's Account of the Holocaust Reconsidered”, Analyse & Kritik 20( 1): 74– 94.
Mastroianni, G.R. ( 2002) “Milgram and the Holocaust: A Reexamination”, Journal of Theoretical & Philosophical Psychology 22( 2): 158– 173.
Milgram, S. ( 1974) Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View . New York: Harper & Row.
Miller, A.G. ( 1986) The Obedience Experiments: A Case Study of Controversy in Social Science . New York: Praeger.
Miller, A.G. ( 2004a) “Introduction and Overview”, in A.G. Miller, ed., The Social Psychology of Good and Evil . New York: Guilford Press, pp. 1– 20.
Miller, A.G. ( 2004b) “What Can the Milgram Obedience Experiments Tell Us About the Holocaust? Generalizing From the Social Psychology Laboratory”, in A.G. Miller, ed., The Social Psychology of Good and Evil . New York: Guilford Press, pp. 193– 237.
Mills, C.W. ( 1951) White Collar: The American Middle Classes . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mixon, D. ( 1971) “Beyond Deception”, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 2( 2): 145– 177.
Mixon, D. ( 1989) Obedience and Civilization . London: Pluto Press.
Murata, T. ( 1962) “Reported Beliefs in Shock and Level of Obedience”, unpublished research report, Milgram Archives, Yale University.
Nicholson, I. ( 2011a) “‘Shocking’ Masculinity: Stanley Milgram, ‘Obedience to Authority,’ and the Crisis of Manhood in Cold War America”, ISIS 102: 238– 268.
Nicholson, I. ( 2011b) “‘Torture at Yale’: Experimental Subjects, Laboratory Torment, and the ‘Rehabilitation’ of Milgram's ‘Obedience to Authority’”, Theory & Psychology 21( 6): 1– 25.
Orne, M. and Holland, C.H. ( 1968) “On the Ecological Validity of Laboratory Deceptions”, International Journal of Psychiatry 6: 282– 293.
Patten, S. ( 1977) “Milgram's Shocking Experiments”, Philosophy 52( 4): 425– 440.
Perry, G. ( 2012) Behind the Shock Machine: The Untold Story of the Milgram Obedience Experiments (Revised and re-published in 2013). Melbourne: Scribe. New York: New Press.
Perry, G. ( 2015) “Seeing Is Believing: The Role of the Film Obedience in Shaping Perceptions of Milgram's Obedience to Authority Experiments”, Theory & Psychology 25( 4): 622– 638.
Reicher, S.D. and Haslam, S.A. ( 2011) “After Shock? Towards a Social Identity Explanation of the Milgram ‘Obedience’ Studies”, British Journal of Social Psychology 50: 163– 169.
Rosenbaum, M. ( 1983) “Compliance”, in M. Rosenbaum, ed., Compliant Behavior: Beyond Obedience to Authority . New York: Human Sciences Press, pp. 25– 49.
Russell, N.J.C. ( 2009) Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority Experiments: Towards an Understanding of their Relevance in Explaining Aspects of the Nazi Holocaust . Doctoral Thesis. Wellington: Victoria University of Wellington.
Russell, N.J.C. ( 2011) “Milgram's Obedience to Authority Experiments: Origins and Early Evolution”, British Journal of Social Psychology 50( 1): 140– 162.
Russell, N.J.C. and Gregory, R. ( 2015) “The Milgram-Holocaust Linkage: Challenging the Present Consensus”, State Crime Journal 4( 2): 128– 153.
Sabini, J. and Silver, M. ( 1982) Moralities of Everyday Life . New York: Oxford University Press.
Stam, H.J., Lubek, I. and Radtke, L. ( 1998) “Repopulating Social Psychology Texts: Disembodied ‘Subjects’ and Embodied Subjectivity”, in B. Bayer and J. Shotter, eds, Reconstructing the Psychological Subject: Bodies, Practices and Technologies . London: Sage, pp. 153– 186.
Steiner, J.M. ( 1980) “The SS Yesterday and Today: A Sociopsychological View”, in J.E. Dimsdale, ed., Survivors, Victims, and Perpetrators: Essays on the Nazi Holocaust . New York: Hemisphere Publications.
Tedeschi, J.T., Lindskold, S. and Rosenfeld, P. ( 1985) Introduction to Social Psychology . St. Paul: West Publishing.
Weber, M. ( 1946) “Bureaucracy”, in H.H. Gerth and C.W. Mills, eds and trans, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology . New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 196– 244.
Weber, M. ( 1958) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism . Trans. T. Parsons and Introduction by A. Giddens. New York: Charles Scribner.

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] Allen, M.T. ( 2002) The Business of Genocide: The SS, Slave Labor, and the Concentration Camps . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

[2] Allen, M.T. ( 2005) “Introduction: A Bureaucratic Holocaust – Towards a New Consensus”, in G.D. Feldman and W. Seibel, eds, Networks of Nazi Persecution: Bureaucracy, Business and the Organization of the Holocaust . New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 259– 268.

[3] Arendt, H. ( 2003 [ 1964]) “Personal Responsibility under Dictatorship”, in Responsibility and Judgment . New York: Shocken Books, pp. 17– 48.

[4] Askenasy, H. ( 1978) Are We All Nazis ? Secaucus: Lyle Stuart.

[5] Bartov, O. ( 2001) The Eastern Front 1941–45, German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare (2nd ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

[6] Baumrind, D. ( 1964) “Some Thoughts on Ethics of Research: After Reading Milgram's ‘Behavioral Study of Obedience’”, American Psychologist 19( 6): 421– 423.

[7] Baumrind, D. ( 1985) “Research Using Intentional Deception: Ethical Issues Revisited”, American Psychologist 40( 2): 165– 174.

[8] Berkowitz, L. ( 1999) “Evil Is More Than Banal: Situationism and the Concept of Evil”, Personality and Social Psychology Review 3( 3): 246– 253.

[9] Brannigan, A. ( 1997) “The Postmodern Experiment: Science and Ontology in Experimental Social Psychology”, The British Journal of Sociology 48( 4): 594– 610.

[10] Brannigan, A. ( 1998) “Criminology and the Holocaust: Xenophobia, Evolution and Genocide”, Crime & Delinquency 44( 2): 257– 276.

[11] Brannigan, A. ( 2013) Beyond the Banality of Evil: Criminology and Genocide . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[12] Browning, C. ( 1992) Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland . New York: HarperCollins. Afterword 1998.

[13] Burger, J., Girgis, Z.M. and Manning, C.C. ( 2011) “In Their Own Words: Explaining Obedience to Authority through an Examination of Participants' Comments”, Social Psychological & Personality Science 2: 460– 466.

[14] Charny, I.W. ( 1982) How Can We Commit the Unthinkable? Genocide, the Human Cancer . Boulder: Westview Press.

[15] Darley, J.M. ( 1992) “Social Organization for the Production of Evil”, Psychological Inquiry 3: 199– 218.

[16] Darley, J.M. ( 1995) “Constructive and Destructive Obedience: A Taxonomy of Principal Agent Relationships”, Journal of Social Issues 51 ( 3): 125– 154.

[17] Darley, J.M. ( 1999) “Methods for the Study of Evil-Doing Actions”, Personality and Social Psychology Review 3: 269– 275.

[18] Dicks, H.V. ( 1972) Licensed Mass Murder: A Socio-Psychological Study of Some SS Killers . London: Heinemann Educational for Sussex University.

[19] Erlikman, V. ( 2004) “Soviet War Casualties Cited in World War II Casualties”. Wikipedia. Available online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties (accessed 1 June 2016).

[20] Fenigstein, A. ( 1998a) “Reconceptualizing the Obedience of the Perpetrators”, in D.G. Shilling, ed., Lessons and Legacies, Vol. II: Teaching the Holocaust in a Changing World . Evanston: Northwestern University Press, pp. 55– 84.

[21] Fenigstein, A. ( 1998b) “Were Obedience Pressures a Factor in the Holocaust?” Analyse & Kritik 20( 1): 54– 73.

[22] Fromm, E. ( 1973) The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness . London: Jonathan Cape.

[23] Gibson, S. ( 2011) “Milgram's Obedience Experiments: A Rhetorical Analysis”, British Journal of Social Psychology 52: 290– 309.

[24] Gibson, S. ( 2013) “‘The Last Possible Resort’: A Forgotten Prod and the In Situ Standardization of Stanley Milgram's Voice-Feedback Condition”, History of Psychology 16( 3): 177– 194.

[25] Goldhagen, D. ( 1996) Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust . New York: Knopf. Afterword 1997.

[26] Griggs, R.A. and Whitehead, G.I. ( 2015a) “Coverage of Milgram's Obedience Experiments in Social Psychology Textbooks: Where Have All the Criticisms Gone?” Teaching Psychology 42( 4): 315– 322.

[27] Griggs, R.A. and Whitehead, G.I. ( 2015b) “Coverage of Recent Criticisms of Milgram's Obedience Experiments in Introductory Social Psychology Textbooks”, Theory & Psychology 25( 5): 564– 580.

[28] Gruner, W. ( 2005) “Local Initiatives, Central Coordination: German Municipal Administration and the Holocaust”, in G.D. Feldman and W. Seibel, eds, Networks of Nazi Persecution: Bureaucracy, Business and the Organization of the Holocaust . New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 269– 294.

[29] Helm, C. and Morelli, M. ( 1979) “Stanley Milgram and the Obedience Experiment: Authority, Legitimacy and Human Action”, Political Theory 7: 321– 345.

[30] Hoffman, E., Myerberg, N.R. and Morawski, J.G. ( 2015) “Acting Otherwise: Resistance, Agency and Subjectivities in Milgram's Studies of Obedience”, Theory & Psychology 25( 4): 670– 689.

[31] Lang, J. ( 2014) “Against Obedience: Hannah Arendt's Overlooked Challenge to Social-Psychological Explanations of Mass Atrocity”, Theory & Psychology 24( 5): 649– 667.

[32] Lutsky, N. ( 1995) “When Is ‘Obedience’ Obedience? Conceptual and Historical Commentary”, Journal of Social Issues 51( 3): 55– 65.

[33] Mandel, D.R. ( 1998) “The Obedience Alibi: Milgram's Account of the Holocaust Reconsidered”, Analyse & Kritik 20( 1): 74– 94.

[34] Mastroianni, G.R. ( 2002) “Milgram and the Holocaust: A Reexamination”, Journal of Theoretical & Philosophical Psychology 22( 2): 158– 173.

[35] Milgram, S. ( 1974) Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View . New York: Harper & Row.

[36] Miller, A.G. ( 1986) The Obedience Experiments: A Case Study of Controversy in Social Science . New York: Praeger.

[37] Miller, A.G. ( 2004a) “Introduction and Overview”, in A.G. Miller, ed., The Social Psychology of Good and Evil . New York: Guilford Press, pp. 1– 20.

[38] Miller, A.G. ( 2004b) “What Can the Milgram Obedience Experiments Tell Us About the Holocaust? Generalizing From the Social Psychology Laboratory”, in A.G. Miller, ed., The Social Psychology of Good and Evil . New York: Guilford Press, pp. 193– 237.

[39] Mills, C.W. ( 1951) White Collar: The American Middle Classes . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[40] Mixon, D. ( 1971) “Beyond Deception”, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 2( 2): 145– 177.

[41] Mixon, D. ( 1989) Obedience and Civilization . London: Pluto Press.

[42] Murata, T. ( 1962) “Reported Beliefs in Shock and Level of Obedience”, unpublished research report, Milgram Archives, Yale University.

[43] Nicholson, I. ( 2011a) “‘Shocking’ Masculinity: Stanley Milgram, ‘Obedience to Authority,’ and the Crisis of Manhood in Cold War America”, ISIS 102: 238– 268.

[44] Nicholson, I. ( 2011b) “‘Torture at Yale’: Experimental Subjects, Laboratory Torment, and the ‘Rehabilitation’ of Milgram's ‘Obedience to Authority’”, Theory & Psychology 21( 6): 1– 25.

[45] Orne, M. and Holland, C.H. ( 1968) “On the Ecological Validity of Laboratory Deceptions”, International Journal of Psychiatry 6: 282– 293.

[46] Patten, S. ( 1977) “Milgram's Shocking Experiments”, Philosophy 52( 4): 425– 440.

[47] Perry, G. ( 2012) Behind the Shock Machine: The Untold Story of the Milgram Obedience Experiments (Revised and re-published in 2013). Melbourne: Scribe. New York: New Press.

[48] Perry, G. ( 2015) “Seeing Is Believing: The Role of the Film Obedience in Shaping Perceptions of Milgram's Obedience to Authority Experiments”, Theory & Psychology 25( 4): 622– 638.

[49] Reicher, S.D. and Haslam, S.A. ( 2011) “After Shock? Towards a Social Identity Explanation of the Milgram ‘Obedience’ Studies”, British Journal of Social Psychology 50: 163– 169.

[50] Rosenbaum, M. ( 1983) “Compliance”, in M. Rosenbaum, ed., Compliant Behavior: Beyond Obedience to Authority . New York: Human Sciences Press, pp. 25– 49.

[51] Russell, N.J.C. ( 2009) Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority Experiments: Towards an Understanding of their Relevance in Explaining Aspects of the Nazi Holocaust . Doctoral Thesis. Wellington: Victoria University of Wellington.

[52] Russell, N.J.C. ( 2011) “Milgram's Obedience to Authority Experiments: Origins and Early Evolution”, British Journal of Social Psychology 50( 1): 140– 162.

[53] Russell, N.J.C. and Gregory, R. ( 2015) “The Milgram-Holocaust Linkage: Challenging the Present Consensus”, State Crime Journal 4( 2): 128– 153.

[54] Sabini, J. and Silver, M. ( 1982) Moralities of Everyday Life . New York: Oxford University Press.

[55] Stam, H.J., Lubek, I. and Radtke, L. ( 1998) “Repopulating Social Psychology Texts: Disembodied ‘Subjects’ and Embodied Subjectivity”, in B. Bayer and J. Shotter, eds, Reconstructing the Psychological Subject: Bodies, Practices and Technologies . London: Sage, pp. 153– 186.

[56] Steiner, J.M. ( 1980) “The SS Yesterday and Today: A Sociopsychological View”, in J.E. Dimsdale, ed., Survivors, Victims, and Perpetrators: Essays on the Nazi Holocaust . New York: Hemisphere Publications.

[57] Tedeschi, J.T., Lindskold, S. and Rosenfeld, P. ( 1985) Introduction to Social Psychology . St. Paul: West Publishing.

[58] Weber, M. ( 1946) “Bureaucracy”, in H.H. Gerth and C.W. Mills, eds and trans, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology . New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 196– 244.

[59] Weber, M. ( 1958) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism . Trans. T. Parsons and Introduction by A. Giddens. New York: Charles Scribner.

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Milgram, Genocide and Bureaucracy: A Post-Weberian Perspective

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