Suchergebnisse

Notwithstanding our collective failure to define the term to the satisfaction of all, decades of focused attention on accountability have at the least made us aware of those conditions that have made our task so challenging. What we have learned about our subject can be summarized as follows:  Accountability is multifunctional  Accountability is polymorphic  Accountability is situated  Accountability is promiscuous I briefly consider each of these "features" of accountability and conclude by offering a radically different approach to our subject that might help us emerge from the intellectual rut of typologies and cases that we now seem to occupy. I argue that by refocusing our view of accountability – by seeing it in the broader historical context of what I term "meta-problems" – we will be able to take the study of accountability to a different and more fruitful level. As a demonstration of the "meta-problem" perspective's potential, I offer a retelling of one watershed historical episode. I conclude with some brief observations.