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Annette Y. Lee-Chai and John A. Bargh (Editors). The Use and Abuse of Power: Multiple Perspectives on the Causes of Corruption. Philadelphia: Psychology Press, 2001, 312 pages, $59.95.
Reviewed by Gary B. Brumback, Palm Coast, FL.
The main title and subtitle of the book, along with its cover portraying the U.S. Capital in the day and at night, suggest that there will be a description and explanation from different perspectives of the use and abuse of power by the Congress. However, not one of the 15 chapters even mentions that topic. Except for the last one, most chapters don't even mention corruption by name or address its most common usage, that of bribery, and thus seem to contradict the editors' claim in the preface that "each chapter discusses how the use of power may lead to corruption" (to be fair, a second meaning of corruption is debasement, and the book does dwell on stereotyping, discrimination, and sexual harassment). Moreover, there's very little about the insidious and harmful abuses of power by large corporations.
The editors may have been a bit self-conscious about the promise largely unfulfilled, for they state, "we hope we never abused our powers as editors in bringing this book to fruition." There seem to be few qualms among the contributors, though. In only two chapters is there an acknowledgment that the corruptive effects of power are beyond the scope of those chapters.
The idea for the book stemmed from a symposium at the 1998 meeting of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. Including the editors, the book has 24 contributors, all but one an academician in, I think, the fields of social and personality psychology. The aim of the book, according to the editors, is to "unmask the mystery of this enigmatic force" of power.
I get the impression that the editors simply assembled some scholars who have large bibliographies on some facet or other of the phenomenon of power and then gave them only a very general suggestion about what to write. No introductory chapter, no integration of the 15 chapters, nor any summary of them is provided by the editors, probably because it would have been impossible or too difficult to do. They merely title the book's...