DRAFT
Melvin J. Dubnick
Professor of Political Science
University of New Hampshire
March 13, 2007
The obsessive and extensive attention given to "accountability"
over the past several years has not been matched
by sufficient attention to the concept's place and
role in modern governance. Its undisciplined application
in rhetorical, critical and analytic contexts has
reduced the concept to a pointless and free-floating
label that has lost its value as a meaningful term
of art in the study of government and political
life.
This paper is an effort to remedy
that circumstance - to seek a form of "salvation"
for the idea of accountability by engaging in an
effort to "situate" the concept linguistically,
functionally, historically and theoretically. The
central and ultimate objective of this exercise
is to (re)locate the concept in its proper form
to its place within the political ontology of modern
governance.
[This paper is a substantial revision
of earlier versions of "Seeking Salvation for
Accountability" found at http://mjdubnick.dubnick.net/dubnick/papers/salv2002.htm.]
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