Sensemaking,communicative distortion and the logic of public inquiry legitimation

Abstract

This paper investigates the public inquiry as a ceremonial legitimator of state responses to technological disaster. The paper addresses: (1) the implications of welfare state theory for understanding the public inquiry; (2) the commu nicative validity claims and counter-claims made by inquiry participants; (3) how sensemaking practices are used to interpret and transform these claims into institutionally sensible accounts; and (4) how the inquiry legitimates state and corporate responses to technological disaster. To investigate these issues, the paper describes a public inquiry into a fatal pipeline accident and then analyses key segments of inquiry testimony. The paper demonstrates that the inquiry distorted local logics of safety used by members and transformed these into the top-down logics of safety regulators. This distortion preserved the vi ability of disaster control through state regulation and thereby legitimated state actions and control procedures. The paper concludes by addressing the practi cal implications of the research.