Bureaucratic compartmentalization structurally enables individuals to evade responsibility for harm.

Evidence

BBC officials had to deal with the compromised morality of shielding a child sexual abuser for decades. They used both structural and psychosocial means of evading responsibility. They instituted an insulated hierarchical system of bureaucratic layers of management that was better suited to passing the buck than for decision making within a clear chain of responsibility (Kulish, 2012). There was little informative communication among the compartmentalized bureaucratic levels. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 567

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the vault’s claims about ordinary people rationalizing harmful policy and to Milgrom-type claims about institutions structuring information flows. — connects to: Bureaucrats absorb blame for system-level failures they did not decide. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 1325; Bureaucratic officials derive enjoyment from disavowing personal responsibility — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 100
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 567