Theorizing institutional scandal and the regulatory state

Abstract

One by one, UK public institutions are being scandalized for corruption, immorality or incompetence and subjected to trial by media and criminal prosecution. The state’s historic response to public sector scandal—denial and neutralization—has been replaced with acknowledgement and regulation in the form of the re-vamped public inquiry. Public institutions are being cut adrift and left to account in isolation for their scandalous failures. Yet the state’s attempts to distance itself from its scandalized institutions, while extending its regulatory control over them, are risky. Both the regulatory state and its public inquiries risk being consumed by the scandals they are trying to manage.