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Fellow Norman Johnson, who represented James
Banovetz, chair of this year's award committee, told meeting
attendees, "The twenty-four books nominated for this
year's Award represented a broad range of topics confronting
the field of public administration.The committee concluded
that Dr. Adams and Dr. Balfour have addressed in provocative
terms the all too frequently overlooked relationship between
evil and public administration. In doing so, they have made
an outstanding contribution for which they are most deserving
of the award."
On behalf of the committee, Johnson observed
that "Unmasking Administrative Evil does not leave
the reader feeling comfortable.Nor should it.As one of the
Committee members stated, this volume 'addresses with a new
determination and dedication an emphasis too long relegated
to shadows.'By unearthing new ground, Adams and Balfour provide
a firm foundation upon which scholars and practitioners alike
can operationalize this theme with an eye toward a more ethical
administrative culture."
Adams and Balfour write that the tendency
toward administrative evil, as manifested in acts of dehumanization
and genocide, is deeply imbued within the identity of public
administration and other fields of public life.In their book,
the authors first examine the Holocaust as the "signal
event in human history that unmasks the reality of administrative
evil," and then discuss the post-war U.S. space program
and the Challenger disaster as examples of "masked evil."Adams
and Balfour also argue that administrators can engage in acts
of evil without knowing their actions are wrong, and they
demonstrate that the consequences of these actions-as unintended
as they may be-can produce devastating outcomes.
Guy Adams is Professor and Chair of the
Department of Public Administration at the University of Missouri-Columbia.A
coeditor-in-chief of the American Review of Public Administration,
his research interests are in the areas of public administration
history and theory, public service ethics and organization
studies.Danny Balfour serves as Associate Professor and Director
of the School of Public and Nonprofit Administration at Grand
Valley State University.He is the managing editor of the Journal
of Public Affairs Education, and his teaching interests include
organizational theory and behavior, social policy, and the
Holocaust.
Academy Fellow James Banovetz, Professor
and Director Emeritus, Division of Public Administration,
Northern Illinois University, was joined on the 1998 Brownlow
Book Award Committee by Academy Fellows James Colvard, Visiting
Professor, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University;
Mary Evelyn Huey, President Emerita, Texas Woman's University;
and Norman J. Johnson, President of the Atlanta School Board.
Copies of Unmasking Administrative Evil
may be ordered from Sage Publications by calling 805-499-0721.
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