Paper posted — seeking feedback….
My colleague, Justin O’Brien, presented our co-authored paper at the American Political Science meeting in Toronto yesterday. The conference is actually still going on (until Sunday), but our paper was scheduled for a panel on Thursday.
Thanks in large measure to huge time zone differences (Justin is based in Brisbane, I’m in Massachusetts), as well as my inability “let go” of any project without a fight, we did not finish this paper until Tuesday — and even then there was plenty of material left on the virtual “editing room floor”.
I could not make it to Toronto, but Justin said the paper was well received among those who had a chance to look it over. But of course we would like to have more feedback — and so the paper is posted at http://mjdubnick.dubnick.net/papersrw/2009/dubobr2009.html. Feel free to download, read and provide feedback. All we ask at the moment is that it not be cirted without “permission” (in short, if there is something worthy to use — or attack — in the paper, no problem so long as we are aware).
The idea for the paper came from the frustration felt over the years of having to deal with the meaning of accountability. In recent years, the use of the term has increased significantly, and yet we probably have less of a grasp on what this concept means than we might have several decades ago. And then came the current financial crisis, and if there is one term that pervades all the debates and narratives it is “accountability.” Here was an opportunity to get some insight into accountabiltiy by studying its use in the discourses surround the global financial market collapse.
There is little systematic analysis in this paper. Instead we try to draw out and highlight what we can from the use of this important “Keyword”. A couple of interesting frameworks emerged as a result, and we think this may prove to be a fruitful approach to deal with this elusive concept and its role in governance.
Hope some of you will read the paper and send us some feedback. Our emails are on the title page.
mjd
A blog focused on things related to accountability, governance and all sorts of other ideas that I might want to share.