The book is about accountability processes and how they contribute solutions to our current environmental and global political problems. This book is different to other literature in this field. This is so because the dominant accountability discourse is shaped by what is defined as a neoliberal business case for social and environmental reform.

This book assumes a nirvana stance within globalisation where all citizens operate within the parameters of the free market and will recover from adverse economic and political damage. Further this book uses neoliberalism and free-market reforms aims as examples to implement efficient management technologies and create more competitive pressures.

Central to the argument of the book are perspectives on authenticity, expressivism and interpretivism which are found to provide a radical reworking of our understanding of being in the world. These frameworks offer a starting point for rethinking the way individuals, businesses and communities ought to be dealing politically with accountability and ecological crises. The argument builds to an accountability perspective that utilises work from expressivism, interpretivism, classical liberalism and postmodern theory. The theoretical quest undertaken in this book is to develop connections between accountability, democratic, ethical and ecological perspectives.

Autorentext

Associate Professor Glen Lehman is Senior Research Fellow: Accounting at the University of South Australia Business School, where he teaches both undergraduate and postgraduate courses and conducts research in the fields of accounting, philosophy and social theory. Professor Lehman is also a member of the Centre for Applied Financial Studies (CAFS) which merges financial theory and practice by bringing together academics and industry experts to facilitate international research collaborations in Finance.Professor Lehman completed a PhD in ecological political theory at Flinders University, where he also attained degrees in economics, accounting and political science, and an MBA at the University of South Australia. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the internationally influential interdisciplinary research journal Accounting Forum from 1994 - 2018. He has served on more than ten journal editorial boards internationally providing his experience and knowledge. Professor Lehman has published scholarly articles in a range of prestigious journals, is a member of the British, the American and the Australian Accounting Associations, and has been a visiting researcher in Australia and the United Kingdom.

Inhalt

Chapter 1: Introduction

Introduction

Chapter 1: Basic issues: Liberal accountability to interpretivism

Basic Issues and Definitions in accountability research.

Chapter 2: Background: Current accountability, environmental and social challenges and policy

Explores the dominant western beliefs about humanity's relationship with the environment, and how current environmental issues have been shaped by government policies in the past 20 years.

Chapter 3 - Liberal accountability: a critical perspective

Explores Brundtland's and Rawls' definition of sustainability, and an instrumental and procedural approach to environmental management. Have times changed, and is the report still relevant in an increasingly globalised world?

Chapter 4 - Accountability and democratic structures: coping with environment and social crises

Relationships in civil society are more than market-based, and the work of Charles Taylor and Jurgen Habermas demonstrates how commonalities and differences between people can be reconciled in a new political space.

Chapter 5 - Global dimensions of accountability: relationships between the global and the local

Global environmental decisions often ignore local values and relationships, and perpetuate one-sided approaches to accountability and political decision-making. This chapter explores how proposals and protocols such as Kyoto have failed to address local issues.

Chapter 6 - Nature's value I : Deep ecology and community

Deep Ecology was one of the first environmental movements to argue that nature is more than just a simple resource and has intrinsic value. The communitarian approach explores how resource value and intrinsic value are not necessarily incompatible in environmental decision-making.

Chapter 7 - Nature's Value II: social ecology and how people relate to the world

Fringe environmentalists are gaining mainstream political leverage, with a range of beliefs from the destruction of capitalism, to full social anarchy followed by the return to small village communities. This chapter explores how activists such as Murray Bookchin are gaining influence in the environmental debate.

Chapter 8 - The Role of NGOs: filling the void between governments and the environment

Non-Government Organisations are becoming increasingly influential activists in environmental politics, as they expand into public roles that were once the sole province of Government. This chapter examines the role and rise of NGOs, and the implications of their activities.

Chapter 9 - Critical Accountability: From Derrida To Taylor's Interpretivism

With the failure of socialist economics, it is useful to compare the ideas of Derrida, Habermas and Taylor as they apply to current environmental problems. Critical social theory can be used to interpret existing dualisms in dominant western philosophy. Conclusion New directions for accountability, environmental democracy and transparency.