Indoctrination and coercion in agent motivation: Evidence from Nazi Germany

How do principals combine indoctrination and coercion to motivate their agents? Based on previous literature, we argue that indoctrination on the one hand and coercion on the other are substitutes in agent motivation—more of one requires less of the other. But measuring this substitution effect is h...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Miller, Charles, Barber, Benjamin, Bakar, Shuvo
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2018
País:España
Institución:IE
Repositorio:Repositorio IE
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.ie.edu:20.500.14417/3428
Acceso en línea:https://doi.org/10.1177/1043463118754875
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14417/3428
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:59 Ciencia Política
ODS 5 - Igualdad de género
ODS 16 - Paz, justicia e instituciones sólidas
Descripción
Sumario:How do principals combine indoctrination and coercion to motivate their agents? Based on previous literature, we argue that indoctrination on the one hand and coercion on the other are substitutes in agent motivation—more of one requires less of the other. But measuring this substitution effect is hard since individuals often self-select into ideological organizations and have incentives to claim insincerely to be ideologically motivated. Using a novel dataset of wartime behavior contained in a large sample of World War II German service records, we present a solution to these problems. We find convincing evidence to support our theory—the German army was able to induce similar effort levels from soldiers who had and had not been in the Hitler Youth, though Hitler Youth alumni required fewer punishments.