Responsibility Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Stemming from the Latin spondeo-respondeo, meaning to promise to answer, the concept of responsibility is strongly related to the condition of moral imputability of an actor in relation to the actor’s deeds or omissions, as described by Mariana Oshana in 2001, with regard to the foundations of moral agency. Aristotle argues that moral responsibility regards praise or blame on the basis of individual actions and dispositional traits, when the capacity for decision is ascertained. On the other side, social sciences have tried to anchor the question of responsibility to a given institutional context and to the processes of an agent’s role. In this view responsibility has been reserved primarily for actions occurring in the scope of interpersonal relationships, considering that behavioral expectations and obligations accompany any particular status. Yet, although often the focus remains concentrated on the individual agent, other modern interpretations of responsibility are not only connected to the debate on individual duties and free will. Indeed the concept of responsibility also has been analyzed with reference to the processes of delegating authority to an individual representative or to a collective body.

The use of responsibility as a political concept is relatively recent. Strongly related with the development of representative democracy, it was compared for the first time in The Federalist Papers (1788), where it was associated by Alexander Hamilton with the idea of government, in expressions such as responsible government or responsibility of government. The American Founders used the term responsibility as a synonymous with accountability, implying “mechanisms for the active monitoring of public officials and the means for enforcing public expectations,” as noted by theorist Joseph Bessette (2001, 39). Maintaining such meaning, responsibility has become a key concept of liberal theory. In a constitutional regime, government is controlled by citizens and acts with a constant reference to such oversight.

Yet a different interpretation of responsibility has accompanied the spread of democratic institutions: governors could be responsible also taking care “that the results are correct and good for many. Such responsibility is the most interesting kind because it goes beyond questions of accountability and obligation in any simple meaning,” as argued by Mark Blitz (1998). Edmund Burke provided the base of the modern prohibition of the imperative mandate for elected members of parliament in his speech to electors of Bristol. This view protects the autonomy of representatives, who have to act with reference to a general will. He stated that “parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests, which interest each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates. But Parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole” (Burke 1968, 115). Along the same line, when considering the practical application of responsibility, a protagonist of French Revolution (1789–1799), abbé Joseph Sieyès, provided the most explicit formulation of the opposition between the will of nation and special interests, expressing skepticism that representative actors could be accountable to citizens.

The main dilemma of modern representation can be identified in divergent concepts of responsibility. As noted by Hanna Pitkin (1967), the difficult definition of the concept of responsibility resides essentially in its twofold nature: it may express the product of a concrete fiduciary relationship as well as a propensity to act in accordance with the evolving general will. Responsibility represents one of the most important challenges for democracy, concerning the difficult balance between the necessity to make political agents responsive to citizens and the need to give actors autonomy to make decisions in the interests of collective.

Bibliography:

Baier, Kurt.“Types of Responsibility.” In Individual and Collective Responsibility, edited by Peter A. French. Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman, 1972.
Bessette, Joseph M. “Accountability: Political.” In International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, edited by Neil J. Smelser and Paul B. Baltes, 38–41. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 2001.
Blitz, Mark. “Responsibility and Public Service.” In Active Duty: Public Administration as Democratic Statesmanship, edited by Peter A. Lawler, Robert M. Schaefer, and David L. Schaefer, 321–338). Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998.
Burke, Edmund. Reflections on the Revolution in France. London: Penguin, 1968.
Eulau, Heinz, and Paul D. Karps. “The Puzzle of Representation: Specifying Components of Responsiveness.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 2, no. 3 (1977): 233–254.
Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison, and John Jay. The Federalist Papers. Edited by Clinton Rossiter. New York: Signet, 1999.
Oshana, Mariana. “Responsibility: Philosophical Aspects.” In International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, edited by Neil J. Smelser and Paul B. Baltes, 13279–13283. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 2001.
Pitkin, Hanna F. The Concept of Representation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967.
Schedler, Andreas. “Conceptualizing Accountability.” In The Self-restraining State: Power and Accountability in New Democracies, edited by Andreas Schedler, Larry Diamond, and Mark F. Plattner, 13–28. London: Lynne Rienner, 1999.

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