Crises, Inquiries and the Politics of Blame

Sandra L. Resodihardjo

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9783030175313
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Public Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

"This study probes deeply into the dynamics of the blame games that seem now to have become an inevitable part of advanced societies' responses to negative events. Resodihardjo's forensic analysis of how such negative events get framed, investigated and accounted for significantly advances our understanding of how incidents and crises affect the reputations and political capital of public authorities, and how they can foster but also significantly impede institutional learning." —Paul 't Hart, Utrecht University, The Netherlands "The crisis is often not even over before the mud starts flying. This little gem of a book outlines causes and consequences of blame games. The author offers strategies for dealing with these blame games. An emerging scholar writing a valuable primer on surviving blame games - warmly recommended!" —Arjen Boin, Leiden University, The Netherlands "This isan important book. Crises are followed by questions and the accountability phase inevitably involves the blame game. In using in-depth case study analysis of tragic incidents at festivals, Sandra Resodihardjo explores why and how blame games start, evolve and are then influenced by a variety of factors. This is a fascinating read, when things go badly wrong the cycle of blame is often complex, involving multiple actors and organisations often battling to frame the event to their own agenda. This should be essential reading not just for scholars studying this critical area of public policy, but practitioners who would undoubtedly learn a lot from the analytical oversight and forensic detail contained in this excellent book." —Mark Bennister, University of Lincoln, United Kingdom
? During the accountability phase following a crisis, the focus is both on learning (how can we prevent a recurrence of this horrific event?) and on finding culprits (who caused and/or contributed to this crisis?). The latter is also known as the blame game where actors receive and respond to blame. Too much focus on the blame game, however, could lead to an unbalanced accountability phase as people are less inclined to share what they know about what happened because of fear, for instance, of resignation. This lack of information hampers the learning process following crises. Hopefully, a better understanding of how blame games work will lead to a better managed blame game which, in turn, should result in a more balanced accountability phase where there is ample of room to learn from the tragic event. This book furthers our understanding of what happens during blame games following crises by looking at both theory and practice. Theories on blame games help to answer questions such as who is blamed and why? How much blame is this person receiving and why? How can this person respond? And why do these responses sometimes not work? One particular response to blame (appointing an inquiry) can have quite an impact on the blame game. That is why the second theoretical chapter addresses questions such as why are inquiries created? How can one influence them? And why are some inquiries more independent than others? The analysis of three festivals gone wrong helps to expand our knowledge of blame games even further. The three cases show that responses to blame can backfire and that rituals, context, and sub-blame games can have an impact on how blame games evolve. Taken together, the theories and cases explored in this book will help people to better understand and manage blame games.

© The Author(s) 2020

Sandra L. ResodihardjoCrises, Inquiries and the Politics of Blamehttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17531-3_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Sandra L. Resodihardjo¹

(1)

Institute for Management Research, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Sandra L. Resodihardjo

Email: [email protected]

Keywords

Blame gamesLearningAccountability phaseBalance

End Abstract

On 20 September 2018, a horrible accident took place in Oss, the Netherlands. An employee of a day-care centre was using an electric transport wagon (a so-called stint) to transport children from the day-care facility to primary school. The stint is popular with Dutch day-care centres because it allows easy transportation of the children. On 20 September 2018, however, a stint collided with a train, killing four children and severely injuring a child and the employee driving the transport wagon. The shock of this tragedy reverberated through the country. In response to this tragedy, the Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management Van Nieuwenhuizen announced that it was no longer allowed to use the stint—this to the dismay of day-care centres which heavily relied on the electric transport wagon to transport children.¹

It looks, though, as if the minister’s decision was not based on the wish to ensure the safety of the public. Instead, the decision to prohibit the usage of the stint seemed to be informed by the need to shift attention away from the minister, the ministry, and the inspection agency (Inspectie Leefomgeving en Transport (ILT)) which should have kept an eye on these transportation vehicles but had failed to do so. By claiming that the stint was unsafe, the transport wagon could be prohibited even though at the time that decision was made, no real evidence existed which supported this claim.²

RTL Nieuws’ reconstruction of the events makes for interesting reading. The Dutch broadcasting station’s reporting shows how the government had been warned in 2011 about these types of vehicles. Yet, the inspection agency had failed to keep an eye on these transport devices—in fact, it did not even know it had to keep an eye on the stint. Moreover, no clear regulations had been made for these new types of vehicles. Consequently, panic broke out. There was a pressing need to get rid of the stint. “From that moment on, the Minister, Secretary-General, Director-General, director, [civil servants], and lawyers worked on a laundry operation: all the dirt[y laundry] from the past needed to be aired as quickly as possible, but in a measured way so that it would not stand out too much. Quick actions were needed to ensure that mistakes from the past would not [negatively affect] the current minister and civil servants.”³

Prohibiting the stint was made difficult by the fact that there was no evidence at the time that the stint was unsafe. But there was such a need within the Ministry to prohibit the stint that “evidence was manipulated in order to create reasonable ‘doubt.’”⁴ Amongst other things, actors creatively copied and pasted from an investigative report by the Dutch Forensic Institute into the stint while the inspection agency had also influenced this investigation. Creative writing was also used when it came to the company’s response to the questions raised about the safety of their product as that response was either ignored or misrepresented in government documents. Moreover, an incorrect police report—which the police and the ministry knew to be incorrect—on another alleged stint related accident experienced by an employee of another day-care centre was used even though that day-care centre and its employee had made it clear that the report did not truthfully depict the incident. Additionally, a rule was fabricated that companies needed to inform the ministry when changing aspects of these types of vehicles such as a more powerful battery.⁵

At the time of writing, it is not known what the causes were of the incident and how this blame game ended. The plot was thickening though as a day-care centre went to court to object to the stint’s prohibition, but the court upheld the minister’s decision.⁶ Questions were raised about the extent to which the minister had misinformed parliament.⁷ A research organization (TNO) was asked to investigate the stint.⁸ This investigation, in turn, allowed the Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management to say that “until the results [of this investigation] are known, I will not make any decisions.”⁹ Meanwhile, the inspection agency told a newspaper that it lacked the capacity to inspect everything¹⁰ and the company which produced the stint had to file for bankruptcy.¹¹ In December, TNO concluded its investigation into the stint: it was deemed to be an unsafe transportation device. Consequently, the minister announced that her decision to prohibit the stint was now final.¹²

The blame game following the tragic accident exhibits all the elements of a classic blame game: actors try to shift the blame to the company which produced the stints, there are already hints of internal strife between government actors (e.g. whether or not the inspection agency had shared certain information with the ministry), there are hints of excuses (e.g. the inspection agency told the media it did not have enough resources to do its job), and an inquiry is used to temporarily stop the decision-making process.

Blame games are nothing new. Crises are often followed by questions about what happened and how this could have happened as well as whether someone is responsible for what happened. The accountability phase following a crisis thus consists of two elements: understanding what happened so one can learn from the crisis in order to prevent its recurrence and determining whether someone is responsible for what happened. The learning part is often facilitated by an inquiry aimed at investigating the events, pointing out what went wrong, and providing a list of recommendations to avoid a similar crisis from happening again. Ideally, the investigation is thorough and looks at the underlying causes of the crisis and the lessons and recommendations of the inquiry are then implemented (Greenwood 1998; Elliott and Smith 2006; Birkland 2009; Elliott 2009). The second element is focused on determining whether someone should be blamed and, if so, who that will be. This process is known as the blame game.

Now I realize that the concept of blame game carries a negative connotation for some readers as they will perceive blame games as processes where self-serving actors dodge responsibility and shift blame to, for instance, unsuspecting subordinates. A valid perception considering the example described above where it seems as if various actors are trying to do their best to protect themselves at the expense of others.

Despite the negative association with the word blame game, I decided to use the word in this research for two reasons. First, if I were to use a different word to describe blame games—e.g. to be held accountable—then this could lead to confusion throughout the book because I would be using the same word (accountability) to describe a specific phase of crisis management (the accountability phase which consists of learning and blame games) and to describe a part of the process within that phase (people being held accountable). That is why I decided to use the commonly accepted concept of blame games.

The second reason for sticking with the concept of blame games has to do with the fact that blame games entail more than just holding people accountable. As I will show in the next chapter, blame games are complex framing processes where debate in society leads to a commonly shared definition of the event (that yes this was indeed a crisis) and a commonly shared acknowledgement of the avoidable harm caused by the crisis. This shared problem definition will also address the cause(s) of the crisis and thus whether someone or an organization can be held responsible for what happened. These blamed actors will then either accept, deflect, shift, or minimize the blame they are facing. Depending on how society receives these blame responses (favourably or not), the blame game will either come to a conclusion or continue. The concept of blame games therefore not only refers to that specific point in time when actors are trying to pass the buck to someone else. It also refers to the framing contest which determines, for instance, whether blame should be assigned and whether that blame can be assigned to an actor or whether we are dealing here with an act of God—in which case the blame game will come to a halt. So despite the fact that some of the readers will perceive the concept of blame game in a negative light, it does best describe the whole process from start to finish.

Having said that, there is a problem with blame games and that problem is actually the reason why I wrote this book. ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Framing and Blaming
• 3. Inquiries Following Crises
• 4. Three Festivals Gone Wrong
• 5. Towards a Better Understanding of Blame Games
• Back Matter