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A Question of Trust

O'Neill · Critique & Boundary · Cambridge University Press (BBC Reith Lectures) · 2002 · Open access

The published version of O'Neill's BBC Reith Lectures, arguing that the proliferation of transparency and accountability mechanisms in public life has paradoxically undermined rather than built trust. O'Neill's central argument: systems designed to demonstrate accountability produce performances of accountability rather than the thing itself. The compliance checklist, the safety audit, the published league table — all create the appearance of transparency while systematically degrading the conditions in which genuine trust and honest account-giving are possible. The mechanism defeats its own purpose. Directly relevant to PS as a critique of accountability-as-surveillance and measurement-as-control, and to the argument that organisations which demand transparency without creating safety will receive performances of transparency rather than honest accounts.

Connected concepts (11)

• Accountability
• Accountability: The Neglected Social Context of Judgment and Choice (paper)
• Affect- and Cognition-Based Trust as Foundations for Interpersonal Cooperation in Organizations (paper)
• The Possibilities of Accountability (paper)
• Blametropism
• Just Culture
• Learning from Error
• The Unintended Consequences of No Blame Ideology for Incident Investigation in the US Construction Industry (paper)
• Does Performance Improve Following Multisource Feedback? A Theoretical Model, Meta-Analysis, and Review of Empirical Findings (paper)
• Goodhart's / Cobra Effect
• Measuring PS