Several weeks ago I had quite the little go-round with a fellow on another news and opinion website regarding matters of scale when it comes to bureaucracies and bureaucrats behaving badly. That put me in mind to revisit my original premise regarding badly behaving bureaucracies and bureaucrats, perhaps expand upon it a bit, and to revisit also the vision I have for the role of this blog as it grows.

My premise: The unprecedented level of egregious corruption in the White House and the Capitol under the Bush II administration is something we have arrived at in this country owing, in some significant measure, to our tolerance of corruption at lower levels of power. Three factors inform this premise.

First, I notice the similarities in corrupt behavior between those in the upper echelons of power and those in the lower. (E.g. this story about Al-Arian.)

Second, I notice how little attention most people are willing to give to corruption at the lower levels, especially if it adversely affects only one person or family at a time, or if the people adversely affected are on the margins of society to begin with. A good example of this kind of dismissiveness is the fellow I mentioned at the beginning of this post. He objected strenuously to my pointing out similarities in types of actions, though of different scale, and did his best, in an online screaming sort of way, to insist that there were no similarities deserving of any notice.*

Third, my background in psychology, as someone who has studied both individual and bureaucratic behavior, permits me to state with a high degree of certainty what the overwhelming majority of both children and felons know: when you get away with something you shouldn’t have done, you’re likely to try getting away with something even bigger the next time. Tongue in cheek aside, escalation of bad behavior is well documented among those who suffer no consequences for their behavior. The prime example we have of that is a president who, as a young man, was not held to account for his actions involving alcohol or drugs, nor for failure to perform his duties, if we’re to believe he skipped out on much of his National Guard service. In other words, to all appearances he was allowed to grow up believing he was above the law, and has carried that so far as to have violated the Constitution many hundreds of times as president. That’s escalation.

Given the premise and the rationale, the next question becomes one of how to remedy the abuses and prevent further corruption. The remedy for unjust behavior is accountability, and we will remedy or curb the escalation of that behavior by instituting accountability at lower levels of power. Transparency is part of both remedy and prevention. When we can bring a measure of transparency by shining a light onto problems, we are better able to effect accountability; and once transparency becomes integral to policies and procedures, it serves to prevent bad behavior.

The premise, rationale, and remedies all lead to what I see for the future of this blog: a network of people in different parts of this country and the world, monitoring the state of bureaucracies within their areas–and an “area” can be either geographical or professional in nature. I will be happy to have people with expertise, say, in corporate bureaucracies reporting on those regardless of where they are located geographically.

I look for us to bring attention both to problems and successes. Indeed, I am looking forward to building a library of case studies and stories that present solutions so that we can draw on the successes of others, avoid re-inventing the wheel, and bring greater benefit to more people sooner. I’m pleased to report that the first example on this web site of a success that can serve as a model for others, Grassroots Leadership’s stopping a private prison, is one of the most frequently accessed pages on the site. I can hardly wait to add more. There’s no telling when a governmental agency in Thailand might have a strategy that can be successfully adapted to work for a company in Wisconsin.
Along the way, expect also to see stories that illustrate why this kind of attention is necessary: the human stories, the effect unjust treatment has on individuals and families and communities. That, after all, is the ultimate rationale.

Peace.

Deborah Alicen

*I will email a link to the exchange with the fellow in question to anyone who asks. Email me back channel.