Neoliberalism and Accountability Failure in the Delivery of Services Affecting the Health of the Public

Abstract

Since the 1980s, the emergence of neoliberalism as a dominant government paradigm has led to increasing instances of accountability failure, resulting in significant injuries or death. Employing a grounded theory approach, accountability failure is defined and explored through analysis of 18 public inquiries and reports in the United Kingdom and Canada. The analysis reveals that the combination of a neoliberal policy paradigm and flawed regulation, governance, culture, and performance management inevitably led to accountability failure. Neoliberal policies have precipitated uncoordinated and underfunded regulatory regimes, an oppressive culture focused on financial efficiency at the expense of quality, self-serving and willfully blind governance, and underfunded and inadequate tools for measuring performance. The evidence suggests that organizations have not learned from each other within or between countries, revealing a pattern of accountability failure in which citizens are placed at risk in their communities and hospitals for preventable injury or death within an increasingly politicized government and leadership environment.