Relevance of the paper for the panel topic:
The paper connects to the panel topic by addressing the increasing relevance of personalisation as a new paradigm in public services: it shows how accounting instruments are used to hold beneficiaries of public services accountable for their personalised state support and construct them as active and able individuals.
Significance of the research (why it is distinctive and its contribution to the field):
While accountability is often seen as something restrictive, this paper aims to explore how accountability can have enabling effects.
The paper aims to contribute to the literature on accountability in the following ways: First, it claims that the abilities of users need to be taken into account when designing enabling and coercive practices of accountability. Second, it discusses how actors can use enabling as well as coercive features of accountability as a multi-faceted repertoire to address different levels of user abilities as situations unfold. Third, it problematizes how enabling end coercive features of accountability are intricately intertwined, and reflects on the disciplinary power of enabling accountability.
Theoretical/conceptual foundations for the research:
Theoretically, the paper draws on the concept of enabling and coercive formalization (Adler & Borys, 1996) and Foucault's Governmentality to explore the intricate relationship of enabling and coercive notions of control.
The research question(s) and method:
The paper asks how the personalisation agenda in public services creates new forms of accountability and how direct interactions between local authorities and accountable persons can unfold enabling and coercive effects.
To explore this question, the paper turns to the case of personal budgets in social care in Germany. In a qualitative study, this paper explores how accountability was enacted in budget conferences that local authorities held with persons with disabilities who received personal budgets from the German state.
The results to be reported:
The case study reveals a repertoire of enabling as well as coercive practices of accountability during budget conferences, including the provision of assistance, the creation of transparency for the accountable person and the flexible treatment of individual cases. The paper discusses how actors can use enabling as well as coercive features of accountability as a multi-faceted repertoire for dynamic interaction as a situation unfolds. The paper suggests a dynamic view on accountability that is based on repertoires of enabling and coercive practices, since enabling as well as coercive effects are intricately intertwined in practice.
Personal budgets provide an example of neo-liberal inspired responsiblization policies translated into an interactive practice of enabling accountability that takes the imperfectness and obscureness of (disabled) people into account.
G1 - Accounting and Accountability – Constructing society – History, culture, politics and
