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.

中文翻译：

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职业压力和组织邪恶：有组织暴力研究的新视角

独裁者、叛军指挥官和黑手党老大经常将可怕和不道德的任务委托给他们的下属。然而，大多数人都想避免这样的工作。这篇分析性文章提出了一种制度逻辑来理解独裁政权、叛乱组织和犯罪团伙如何完成他们的邪恶工作。我们认为，组织的共同特征会产生平凡的职业压力，从而激励下属热心执行应受谴责的任务。下属可能会因为六个不同的原因而承受压力：无能、不当行为、出身、孤立、组织积压和收缩。反过来，上级可以利用受到压力的下属希望通过忠诚地执行组织的邪恶任务来改善他们的晋升前景。根据经验，我们展示了纳粹德国如何利用建议的每一种职业压力来为负责大屠杀的单位配备人员。我们强调，我们的逻辑也可能适用于不太极端的组织邪恶形式。总之，这篇文章提供了一个新的视角来揭开国家和非国家组织中激进行为的神秘面纱，这对我们理解跨国恐怖主义暴力和黑社会犯罪具有重要意义。