TY - JOUR
T1 - Consultation in the policy process
T2 - Douglasian cultural theory and the development of accounting regulation in the face of crisis
AU - Linsley, Philip Mark
AU - McMurray, Robert
AU - Shrives, Philip
PY - 2016/12/7
Y1 - 2016/12/7
N2 - This article employs Douglasian cultural theory to explain how policy consultations intended to secure meaningful reform can, in fact, work to reinforce the status quo. The context for this is an examination of responses to three consultations established by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), the body responsible for regulating accounting and auditing in the UK. The results reveal a lack of diversity of voices in the responses to three consultations, with the enclave and isolate voices being significantly under-represented despite the policy issues under debate being related to the financial crisis. Further, the initial pre-consultation proposals are largely unchanged post-consultation. We suggest that the regulator has not been captured; but instead is subject to what may be described as self-capture. Self-capture describes the instinctive reaction of a solidarity to act to uphold its pattern of social relations which results in the regulator's worldview inevitably (and unwittingly) being perpetuated.
AB - This article employs Douglasian cultural theory to explain how policy consultations intended to secure meaningful reform can, in fact, work to reinforce the status quo. The context for this is an examination of responses to three consultations established by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), the body responsible for regulating accounting and auditing in the UK. The results reveal a lack of diversity of voices in the responses to three consultations, with the enclave and isolate voices being significantly under-represented despite the policy issues under debate being related to the financial crisis. Further, the initial pre-consultation proposals are largely unchanged post-consultation. We suggest that the regulator has not been captured; but instead is subject to what may be described as self-capture. Self-capture describes the instinctive reaction of a solidarity to act to uphold its pattern of social relations which results in the regulator's worldview inevitably (and unwittingly) being perpetuated.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84941757090&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/padm.12212
DO - 10.1111/padm.12212
M3 - Article
VL - 94
SP - 988
EP - 1004
JO - Public Administration
JF - Public Administration
SN - 0033-3298
IS - 4
ER -
