Obedience and Evil: From Milgram and Kampuchea to Normal Organizations

Miguel Pina e Cunha, Arménio Rego, Stewart R. Clegg

Journal of Business Ethics · 2010 · Volume 97 · Issue 2

Abstract

Obedience: a simple term. Stanley Milgram, the famous experimental social psychologist, shocked the world with theory about it. Another man, Pol Pot, the infamous leader of the Khmer Rouge, showed how far the desire for obedience could go in human societies. Milgram conducted his experiments in the controlled environment of the US psychology laboratory of the 1960s. Pol Pot experimented with Utopia in the totalitarian Kampuchea of the 1970s. In this article, we discuss the process through which the Khmer Rouge regime created an army of unquestioningly obedient soldiers – including child soldiers. Based on these two cases, we advance a framework on how obedience can be grown or countered.

Keywords

obedience, Khmer Rouge, children soldiers, organized violence, Pol Pot

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