Susanna Trnka is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Auckland and coeditor of
Catherine Trundle is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at Victoria University of Wellington and coeditor of
Susanna Trnka is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Auckland and coeditor of
Catherine Trundle is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at Victoria University of Wellington and coeditor of
Audit Culture and the Politics of Responsibility: Beyond Neoliberal Responsibilization?
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Published:March 2017
Cris Shore, 2017. "Audit Culture and the Politics of Responsibility: Beyond Neoliberal Responsibilization?", Competing Responsibilities: The Ethics and Politics of Contemporary Life, Susanna Trnka, Catherine Trundle
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This chapter asks, “how can the concepts of responsibility and responsibilization shed light on changing forms of governance and power?” Drawing on ethnographic examples from Britain and New Zealand, I examine how discourses of responsibility operate in government policy agendas and show how modern management techniques and financial accounting practices extend projects of neoliberal governmentality. This audit culture, I argue, has become a key instrument for producing responsibilized, self-managing subjects on the one hand, but irresponsible and unaccountable financial institutions on the other. This raises questions about the relationship between responsibility and power and the limits of corporate social responsibility. My case studies show that while employees are increasingly burdened with personal responsibility and risk, the law of limited liability protects companies from being held accountable for their actions. I conclude that contemporary management discourses around responsibility reflect a new politics of accountability, one that both entrenches yet reframes neoliberal power relations.
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