Audit culture and the politics of responsibility: Beyond neoliberal responsibilization?

Abstract

The discourses of ‘responsibility’ and ‘responsibilization’ have become defining features of contemporary neoliberal societies. Notions of responsibility now permeate all aspects of society and social policy, from government discourses about parenting, deviancy and crime, to ideas about moral agency, citizenship, taxation and the social obligations of corporations. However, responsibility is an ambiguous concept; it evokes a powerful sense of both agency and accountability, empowerment and policing, autonomy and blame. In this chapter I ask, how can we use the concept of responsibility to shed light on contemporary forms of governance and power? I also examine the connections between technologies of audit and responsibilization to show how discourses and practices of accountancy are being used, with varying effects, to produce responsibilised subjects and unaccountable institutions. My argument is framed around three main questions: First, what is responsibility and responsibilization and how can we gain critical purchase on these concepts and the work they do? Second, how is responsibilization linked to particular modes of governing, and how does this relate to the rise of audit culture? And third, what can we learn about the wider social and political trends that are shaping our world by paying closer attention to the practices associated with responsibility?