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://pubpages.unh.edu/dubnick/papers/salv2002.htm.]
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