Nestar Russell
Positions
Associate Professor
Contact information
Web presence
Preferred method of communication
Background
Educational Background
B.Sc. Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, 1997
M.A. Criminology, Victoria University of Wellington, 2000
Ph.D. Public Policy, Victoria University of Wellington, 2009
Biography
I am originally from New Zealand and came to Canada in 2011 as a Commonwealth/Canadian Government postdoctoral scholar. My research interests include Stanley Milgram's Obedience Studies, perpetrator behaviour during the Holocaust, state crime, organizational malevolence, responsibility avoidance and climate change, business graffiti, and the social construction of crime.
My PhD thesis (2009) was published as a two-volume book titled Understanding Willing Participants: Milgram's Obedience Experiments and the Holocaust (Springer Nature). In the past I have published articles in scholarly outlets including the Canadian Journal of Sociology, British Journal of Social Psychology, Journal of Social Issues, Philosophia Scientiae, State Crime Journal, and the American Review of Public Administration. All my publications have been heavily influenced by the sociology of Norbert Elias.
Research
Areas of Research
Courses
| Course number | Course title | Semester |
|---|---|---|
| SOCI325 | Introduction to Deviance and Social Control | |
| SOCI421 | Special topics in Crime and Deviance: Genocide and Terrorism | |
| SOCI327 | Introduction to Criminal Justice | |
| SOCI425 | The Sociology of Violence |
Publications
- Are Milgram’s Obedience Studies Internally Valid? Critique and Counter-Critique (Open Access) . Nestar Russell & Robert Gregory. Open Journal of Social Sciences. (2021)
- Climate Catastrophe and Stanley Milgram’s Electric Shock "Obedience" Experiments: An Uncanny Analogy (Open Access). Nestar Russell & Annette Bolton. Social Sciences. (2019)
- An Important Milgram-Holocaust Linkage: Formal Rationality (Open Access). Nestar Russell. Canadian Journal of Sociology. (2017)
- The Milgram-Holocaust Linkage: Challenging the Present Consensus. Nestar Russell & Robert Gregory. State Crime Journal. (2015)
- The Emergence of Milgram’s Bureaucratic Machine. Nestar Russell. Journal of Social Issues. (2014)
- The Obedience to Authority “Relationship” Condition: Some Methodological and Theoretical Implications (Open Access). Nestar Russell. Social Sciences. (2014)
- Milgram’s Obedience to Authority Experiments: Origins and Early Evolution . Nestar Russell. British Journal of Social Psychology. (2011)
- Spinning an organizational ‘web of obligation’? Moral choice in Stanley Milgram’s ‘obedience’ experiments. Nestar Russell & Robert Gregory. American Review of Public Administration. (2011)
- Making the Undoable Doable: Milgram, the Holocaust and Modern Government. Nestar Russell and Robert Gregory. American Review of Public Administration. (2005)
- Disconcerting Insights: Milgram’s Obedience Experiments, Elias’s Civilizing Process, and the Perpetration of the Holocaust. (Open Access). Russell, N. J. C.. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 11(5). 436-466. (2023)
- Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Studies: An Ethical and Methodological Assessment (Open Access). Russell, N. J. C.. Philosophia Scientiae, 28(2). 107-129. (2024)
- Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Studies: A Theoretical Assessment . Russell, N. J. C. & Künstler, R. . Philosophia Scientiae, 28(2) (Open Access). 3-31. (2024)
- Understanding willing participants, Volume 1: Milgram’s obedience experiments and the Holocaust. Nestar Russell. Springer Nature. (2018)
- Understanding willing participants, Volume 2: Milgram’s obedience experiments and the Holocaust (Open Access). Nestar Russell. Springer Nature. (2019)
- The Influence of Groupthink During the Invention of Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Studies . Nestar Russell. In David M. Allen and James W. Howell (Ed.), Groupthink in Science: Greed, Pathological Altruism, Ideology, Competition, and Culture. Springer International Publishing.. 239-250. (2020)
- Can Norbert Elias’ Civilizing Process Account for Modern Western State Violence? . Russell, N. J. C.. Long-Term Processes in Human History: A Tribute to Johan Goudsblom, Amsterdam, 19 March. The Trippenhuis, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), Kloveniersburgwal 29, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. . (2022)
- Stanley Milgram’s Obedience to Authority Experiments and Norbert Elias’s Civilizing Process: A Disconcerting Connection to the Holocaust. . Russell, N. J. C. . Social Psychology and the Holocaust Conference: Re-Reading Milgram (Toulouse University).. (2021)
- Warfare and Norbert Elias’s Figurational Sociology . Russell, N. J. C. . ISA XIX World Congress of Sociology panel on “Warfare, Distance and Civilizing Processes” (Toronto, Canada). Paper accepted but unable to attend.. (2018)
- The Milgram—Holocaust Linkage: A Comparative Analysis. Session: Violence in Comparative and Historical Perspective.. Russell, N. J. C. . Canadian Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, 02 June.. (2016)
- Recall the Milgram Experiments! Why ‘Obedience to Authority’ Represents Faulty Labeling. . Lutsky, N. & Russell, N. J. C. . Obedience to Authority Conference, Nipissing University, Bracebridge, ON, Canada. (2013)
- The Milgram-Holocaust Linkage: A Dialectical Excursion into the “Banality of Evil”. . Russell, N. J. C. . Joint Meeting of Cheiron and the European Society for the History of the Human Sciences (ESHSS), Dawson College, Montreal, PQ.. (2012)
- Homicide in New Zealand 1988 – 1994: Patterns and Relationships. . Miller, I. & Russell, N. J. C. . 11th Annual Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand.. (1996)
- Book review of Gina Perry’s (2012) “Behind the Shock Machine: The Untold Story of the Notorious Milgram Psychology Experiments." . Russell, N. J. C., & Picard, J. G.. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences. 49(2), 221-223. (2012)
- Book review of Alex Alvarez’s (2010) Genocidal Crimes: Key Ideas in Criminology. . Russell, N. J. C.. State Crime Journal . 1(1), 153-56.. (2012)
- The making of a shocking and (in)famous experiment. . Russell, N. J. C. . The Psychologist. 23(9), 780-782.. (2010)
- Of Babies and Bathwaters: A Response to Brannigan and Perry. . Russell, N. J. C., & Gregory, R. J. . State Crime Journal. (2017)
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