Critical Psychology and Organizations: The Case of the United Nations

Critical Psychology and Organizations: The Case of the United Nations With attention to cultural dynamics, diversity, power, and privilege, this précis investigates the contribution of critical psychology to organizational performance. The précis flags the case of the United Nations system, especially the General Assembly, to identify key challenges in the 21st century and consider how it might advance social justice and well-being.

Olivier Serrat 01/10/2020

1 The study of human behavior in organizations and the workplace, aka industrial–organizational (I/O) psychology, harks to the early 1900s: Münsterberg (1913), an admirer of Taylorism, thought the discipline had applications in business, clinical, educational, legal, and medical settings. These days, I/O psychologists build workforces; change the nature of performance development and management; engage employees; foster work–life balance; leverage social media in employment-related decisions; manage virtual teams; stimulate agility and flexibility in business processes; and use Big Data for better decision making. Much as I/O psychologists mean to, critical psychologists purport to improve the mental and physical well-being of individuals and communities but their ontology, epistemology, axiology, and methodology are different. Critical psychologists charge that organizations and institutional arrangements are not value-free but active agents of domination, oppression, and privilege: thus, what knowledge and techniques I/O psychologists use to help people perform or fit in reinforce the status quo, with hard effects on the vulnerable (Fox et al., 2009). For social justice and well-being, with concern for class, gender, race, and other differences, critical psychologists have for 50 years advocated change in power relations as the predicate of progress (Serrat, 2020).

Critical Psychology and Organizations Critical psychology makes intuitive sense. First, there can be no well-being if you are dominated, oppressed, or under-privileged; by the same token, the cultural, economic, political, social, and other resources needed to offset inequities cannot be allocated without social justice. Second, organizations are socially constructed and so designed to further the microsocial and macrosocial orientations of prevailing ideologies and elites. For these reasons, the structures of inequality that frame power and disadvantage must be taken seriously.

Morgan (1997), an organizational theorist who used images (or metaphors) to elucidate organizational contexts, discerned that organizations could be interpreted as instruments of domination (as well as machines, organisms, brains, cultures, political systems, psychic prisons, and flux and transformation). Alongside critical psychologists, Morgan (1997) opined that the image of organizations as instruments of domination "[…] creates a new level of social consciousness and an appreciation of why relations between exploiting and exploited groups can get so polarized" (p. 259). Per Morgan (1997), the domination metaphor suggests that rationality is a mode of domination that may be intrinsic to organizations: and so, the ideological and ethical aspects of organizing should be central concerns and challenge managers to better appreciate corporate social responsibility; additionally, the metaphor helps understand why the history of organization has been prone to conflict and provides a way to turn the table on power structures. However, the limitations of the domination metaphor are that it may exacerbate the polarization of stakeholders if domination is seen to be the intention, not an unintended result; else, if domination is deemed to be the responsibility of a few, the upshot of the metaphor may be to assign blame to the detriment of whole system approaches or attempts to create nondominating forms of organization; lastly, the metaphor is sometimes considered too extreme (Morgan, 1997). Irrespective, Morgan (1997) saw that organizations as instruments of domination lead to workaholism, occupational accidents and disease, and social and mental stress.

The foregoing reasoned that new modes of organizing will not come about if one thinks in old ways. Critical psychologists will subscribe to the domination metaphor and—in vindication of the need to attend to the intersection of organization and social justice—images of organizations as cultures, political systems, psychic prisons, and flux and transformation will appeal to them too.

So, in a globalizing world, how do critical psychologists propose to see, understand, and redesign organizations for social justice?

2 Critical psychology has applications at individual, group, and organizational levels. Because critical psychologists approach organizations with an eye to ideology, they reframe such social categories and issues as careers, work-related stress, and organizational culture as powerrelevant (Islam & Zyphur, 2009). Especially in corporations, for example, critical psychologists observe that individuals are forced to internalize the logic of the market and commodify themselves to compete with others in situations of mutual hostility, not humility and solidarity (Abbott et al., 2003). To remedy individualized forms of alienation where self-identity is defined by materialistic and occupational criteria and leads to increased levels of addiction, anxiety, and depression, critical psychologists invite consideration of—say—individual differences and selfactualization strategies (Islam & Zyphur, 2009). Critical psychologists reject the intertwining of I/O psychology and human resource management practices that, with meritocratic policies and practices kowtowing to strategy, allow standing inequalities to color job descriptions and define social relations; encourage stereotyping; favor the fortunate; nurture organizational cultures of winners and losers; and perpetuate domination, oppression, and privilege (Parker, 1989; Sandel, 2020). With interventions across planning, organizing, leading, and controlling, critical psychology can help individuals and groups in organizations move from alienation to emancipation. But, what of critical psychology's contributions at the level of systems?

The Case of the United Nations The world is now flat (Friedman, 2007): this opens up opportunities but the need to reconcile economic, environmental, and social dimensions in the Anthropocene tests peace, dignity, and equality on a healthy planet (United Nations, n.d.). Thus, it is pertinent to look at the United Nations, an institution that was established "to maintain international peace and security", "develop friendly relations among nations", "achieve international cooperation in solving international problems", and "be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends" (United Nations, 1945, p. 3).

A 75-year old vision of the future and the world's only truly global intergovernmental organization with 193 member states—with headquarters in New York; main offices in Geneva, Nairobi, Vienna, and The Hague; and duty stations, specialized agencies, programs, and bodies around the world—the United Nations would have to be invented if it did not exist (United Nations, n.d.). The structures of the United Nations system—encompassing its six principal organs (i.e., General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council, Trusteeship Council, International Court of Justice, and Secretariat), 15 specialized agencies (e.g., Food and Agriculture Organization, International Labour Organization, International Monetary Fund, World Bank Group), and several programs and bodies (e.g., United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Children's Fund, United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, United Nations Environment Programme)—seem all the time more relevant (United Nations, n.d.). But, is the organization truly fit for purpose in the 21st century?

"This organization is created to prevent you from going to hell. It isn't created to take you to heaven," is how Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 1953– 1960, put it (1954, as cited in Hanhimäki, 2015, p. 2). The United Nations is an impossible hybrid and the job of its secretary-general might be advertised as the most difficult in the world.

Criticism of the United Nations targets its ability to enforce rulings, administration, effectiveness, ideology, policies, and representativeness. The need for reform is felt most urgently in the composition and workings of the Security Council and fragmented activities for development, democracy and human rights, and peace.

3 The American Psychological Association, for one, advances psychology to benefit societies and improve lives around the world: its representatives at the United Nations have worked with other nongovernment organizations, with staff of the United Nations, and with representatives of member states to expand the understanding of psychology; make psychological science accessible to decision makers; and use psychology's contributions to health and human welfare, human rights, science and technology, and public policy in support of the Sustainable Development Goals, notably SDG 3 which aims to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages (American Psychological Association, n.d.; United Nations, 2015). In particular, the American Psychological Association has underscored that fulfilment of physiological and safety needs (Maslow, 1943) has psychological implications across the work of the United Nations: therefore, a psychological lens can inform its initiatives (Juneau et al., 2012. However, Juneau et al. (2012) reported that "… many believe the sustainable development agenda conceals structural inequalities, human rights violations, international power imbalances, and the transnational corporations' unprecedented reach and influence, which are the real drivers of unsustainable development" (para. 17). Juneau et al.'s (2012) reflections are of the essence of critical approaches to "organizations as social practices which reflect dominant agendas as well as cultural contests occurring in society" and a counter to functionalism (Casey, 2002, pp. 9– 10).

Born to prevent war, the United Nations at 75 must inter alia contend with a pandemic, regional conflicts, a shrinking economy, growing inequality, and climate change in an even more polarized world. What has befallen the United Nations owes to original sin: the organization is premised on multilateralism, with countries large and small collaborating for solutions, but its power structure is a relic of the Second World War. The Security Council is the only organ that can deliver legally binding resolutions backed by sanctions, blue-helmets, or armed forces (United Nations, n.d.). Yet, its permanent members are a hegemony of that war's victors, viz., the People's Republic of China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, each with veto power and the ability to—in furtherance of global inequality—to override decisions. There are no African or Latin American states among the permanent members and what of the European Union? Multicultural India—the largest democracy—but also Brazil, Germany, Japan, South Africa, and Nigeria ought to be candidates to the Security Council: France and the United Kingdom favor an expansion; Russia and the United States are tepid; the People's Republic of China is against. Sponsored by France, an alternative suggestion has been to dilute the veto but Russia objects. Ten temporary members, elected by the General Assembly on two-year terms, brings the total number of Security Council members to 15: for a resolution to be passed, if no veto is exercised, nine members must endorse it. Power struggles rifle through the rest of the United Nations system: economic and technological forces have urged globalization but geopolitical fragmentation is the new anarchy. Humankind will be in trouble if the Security Council is doomed as an institution.

Critical Psychology and the United Nations "If the United Nations is to survive, those who represent it must bolster it; those who advocate it must submit to it; and those who believe in it must fight for it," said political journalist and world peace advocate Norman Cousins (1956, as cited in Hanhimäki, 2015, p. 135). Critical psychology looks to social change as a means to prevent and treat psychopathology: if it is to suggest a strategy to tackle the issues that challenge the United Nations system, critical psychology should explore and advocate alterations in the mechanisms of social structure including their dynamics in such ways that garner wide international support and prevent large countries from abusing or ignoring the United Nations.

4 The United Nations is a tool of nations but the Security Council, which serves as its executive committee, has allowed a handful of them to boost up their national interests. That said, the General Assembly is its parliament: each of the 193 member states can make its voice heard and each has one vote regardless of size. The General Assembly is inclusive, which does not facilitate consensus: but, it is the only place where coalitions for change—that tap networks of actors in governments, international organizations, the corporate sector, and civil society—can be built to bridge and informational and participatory gaps, and where critical choices can be made (Reinicke et al., 2000).

There have been countless calls for reforms of the United Nations: an item for revitalization of the work of the General Assembly has been on the agenda since 1991 but the beneficiaries of the status quo belittle "utopian" proposals for more substantial change. One such, longstanding, proposal concerns the creation, as a subsidiary body of the General Assembly, of a Parliamentary Assembly that would allow direct election of world citizens and so break the hold that bureaucrats exert. This précis is not the place for related details but critical psychologists will agree—and so should advocate—that doing the right thing for social justice and well-being hangs on more than having the right policies: in the first place, it requires having the right structures to implement them (Leinen & Bummel, 2018).

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