Politics

Daring to be a Daniel

“…This is a theme taken forward in Jonathan Koppell’s (2005) research into how conflicting expectations borne of disparate conceptions of accountability frequently undermine organizational effectiveness: a condition he labels “multiple accountabilities disorder” or “MAD” for short. This in turn flows into Dino Falaschetti’s (2009) argument that the implementation of new accountability mechanisms may not actually prevent self-interested behavior but may actually simply facilitate new and different forms of exploitation. This is a critical point.…”

“…At no point did any of the critics highlight that those same MPs they were demonizing had also introduced the most far-reaching constitutional reforms for 300 years or even that the information that had uncovered the scandal had only been made available by the government’s Freedom of Information Act . Public interest considerations regarding the behavior of MPs, balanced discussion, or any broader consideration of the role of an MP in the 21 century were subverted through a process of crisis inflation that sought to portray the scandal as evidence of more systemic failings in the nature of British democracy to serve the sectional interests of specific newspapers and interest groups (Brookes, 2010; Falaschetti, 2009). As David Aaronovitch noted, “Headlines and commentators seemed to compete for the most apocalyptic way of describing a crisis in governance” (Aaronovitch, 2009, p. 9).…”