Operationalizing Giddens’s Recursive Model of Accountability

Abstract

This article contributes to the accountability studies literature by reporting on an attempt to operationalize a recursive concept of accountability grounded in Anthony Giddens’s theory of structuration. The approach developed for this research focused on felt accountability—the subjective experience of being accountable—and on the role of ontological (in)security in shaping accountable actors’ conduct. Case studies of tsunami hazard-mitigation planning in three coastal counties in Oregon provide a preliminary empirical test of the analytic framework. Findings from analysis of documents and semi-structured interviews of local officials involved in mitigation planning confirm the viability of the approach and generate implications for continuing research and for policy and practice. Further development of the approach and framework has the potential to advance richly descriptive and explanatory empirical accountability research and to provide usable insights for the practice of accountability in public organizations.