Literature Review of J Everett and Friesen Critical Perspectives of Accountibity

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of accountability in times of exception. The Italian government'south account-giving practices are critically analysed with respect to the distinct modes in which duties of accountability are discharged for the exceptional measures taken during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in early 2020.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper draws on an exploratory case report. The case analysis draws primarily on data obtained through publicly available documents and covers the period betwixt January 1 and August 7, 2020.

Findings

The paper reveals that the Italian government employed various accountability styles (rebuttal, dismissal, reactive, proactive and coactive). Each style influenced both how the government justified its conduct and how information technology sought to form distinctive relationships with social actors.

Originality/value

The newspaper uses the notion of "styles of accountability" to empirically illustrate how an unprecedented public governance challenge tin can reveal broader accountability trends. The paper contributes to accountability enquiry by elucidating how governments tackle ambivalence and uncertainty in their systems of public accountability in extraordinary times.

Keywords

• Accountability
• Italy
• COVID-19
• Country of exception
• Styles of accountability

Commendation

Andreaus, M., Rinaldi, Fifty., Pesci, C. and Girardi, A. (2021), "Accountability in times of exception: an exploratory report of account-giving practices during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italia", Periodical of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Direction, Vol. 33 No. 4, pp. 447-467. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBAFM-06-2020-0091

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Michele Andreaus, Leonardo Rinaldi, Caterina Pesci and Andrea Girardi

License

Published by Emerald Publishing Express. This commodity is published nether the Creative Commons Attribution (CC Past 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/past/4.0/legalcode

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1. Introduction

The COVID-xix pandemic has resulted in a global health crisis that affects all aspects of society (Earth Wellness Organization, 2020a, b). The speed of the pandemic's global spread has led many national governments to declare a state of emergency both to allow them to thoroughly understand the situation and to protect the people. Equally the disease connected to spread, this state of emergency was characterized by the adoption of various measures, including the limitation of individual freedom, the diversion of goods and services, the closure of public and private facilities and the use of mass-surveillance technologies (Ahrens and Ferry, 2020; Andrew et al., 2020; De Villiers et al., 2020; Nemec and Špaček, 2020). While they differ in terms of their implementation, these measures are exceptional inside virtually governments' legal frameworks (Nay, 2020).

The spread of the COVID-xix pandemic has required urgent reactions from national governments that, at times, take circumvented the usual deliberative processes. However, while accountability studies take become more sophisticated, trivial attending has been paid to how accountability is shaped past (and as well shapes) unparallelled times such as these. The paper focuses on the Italian government's account-giving practices during the early stages of the COVID-nineteen pandemic (manifested by the communication between government officials and the wider public) and empirically analyses how the pandemic'southward evolution was related to accountability processes in response to abrupt, conflicting and extraordinary public governance challenges. In times of crisis, such every bit the COVID-nineteen outbreak, public governance arrangements play a disquisitional role in governments' ability to reply immediately to contain the damages but too to recover and rebuild. For instance, governments are required to formalize and implement policy options and governance models that promote resilience investments such as wellness centres, test capacity and rail and trace systems. Take a chance governance and crisis direction models, however, must rely on digital infrastructures and live data repositories for evidence that tin can shed light on how different areas, sectors or individuals acquit and implement the necessary regulations. At the same time, regulations adopted through fast-track procedures must comply with extant systems of law and must be subject to careful post-implementation reviews. These challenges illustrate the importance of defining principles that are broader than efficiency or cost-effectiveness to include governments' ability to uphold cadre values such every bit transparency and equity. Agreement how duties of accountability come to be discharged in such exceptional times, therefore, has important implications for understanding the potential and limitations of the public governance arrangements that are set out. The COVID-nineteen pandemic has highlighted how these processes of rationalizing conduct take get more sensitive to the emerging demands of health, safety and security. Consequently, novel processes of accountability aimed at aligning organizational exercise with wider societal discourses can be seen to sally (Ahrens, 1996).

This paper aims to increase knowledge and understanding of accountability in times of exception. Drawing on the notion of styles of accountability, this paper classifies and analyses the ways in which governments' emergent reactions to the COVID-19 challenge tin can reveal wider accountability trends. This paper contributes to the accountability literature by showing that during times of exception (Agamben, 2005), the emerging "styles of accountability" do not depend so much on cultural determinism or the exigency of aligning "rhetoric and practice with wider public discourses" (Ahrens, 1996, p. 140) as on the demand to raise "shared responsibility" (Sciulli, 2018). The existing literature has shown how governments have mobilized political capital to alter the role of accountability in times of crunch (Demirag et al., 2020). This paper builds on this research past critically analysing the mechanisms through which the Italian government sought to combine public governance and public accountability issues as a means of urging shared responsibility. The notion of styles plays an important part in enhancing our understanding of how shared responsibility is promoted during diverse phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, people living in areas in which the virus is actively circulating should know the restrictions applied to the populations when the number of active cases is proportionally increasing (i.e. mandatory testing or self-quarantine for travellers; tighter mobility regulations and reduced social interaction). They should also be familiar with the criteria that governments use to decide whether such measures are appropriate. Nevertheless, while restrictive measures are developed by experts from wellness authorities in conjunction with government representatives, trade unions and business associations, it is ultimately the population that makes the final decision every bit to whether or not to follow the recommended protocols. That is, people build their knowledge bases regarding the pandemic'southward evolution through the justification of operational proposals before deciding to take on (or non) a shared responsibility. The analysis reveals five styles of accountability (rebuttal, dismissal, reactive, proactive and coactive), with each style underlining the different ways in which accounting is used within the context of extraordinary public governance challenges.

The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. The side by side section volition briefly innovate Agamben's "country of exception," which has been used to frame the paper'southward conceptual underpinnings. It will also review fundamental accountability scholarship to identify research gaps. Department 3 explains the research design, while Section 4 presents the analysis. The final section discusses the findings and draws conclusions.

2. States of exception and styles of accountability

States of exception take been framed as a government's firsthand response to extreme and imminent threat. The concept has recently been studied by Agamben (2005) and before by Schmitt (1922), and it is used in this paper every bit a heuristic to frame the context in which account-giving practices occurred. This state is characterized by an boggling condition, wherein the conventional order is suspended. I of the central tenets of the state of exception concerns the indistinction between the private lives of citizens and the public sphere. This governmental process results in the transformation of the individuals' identity from citizens of a state to subjects over which the state has complete authority (Agamben, 2005; Foucault, 2008).

States of exception entail exceptional measures resulting from a state of crisis that includes a political dimension and may be described equally "a betoken of imbalance between public law and political facts" (Saint-Bonnet, 2001, p. 28 as cited in Agamben, 2005, p. 1). These exceptional measures can range from pause of the constitution and assumption of full powers past government to the loosening of the distinction between different powers (legislative, executive, etc.). Fundamental to explaining the existence of a state of exception is the theory of necessity, which implies an exception (dispensatio) with respect to the current legal guild aimed at ensuring the "well-beingness of men" (Agamben, 2005, p. 25). Agamben (2005) characterized a land of exception as "an empty space" (p. 86), implying several risks that should be managed and addressed. This empty space must be filled with anarchistic and unused practices or with known practices that assume new meanings and forms. Among these practices, accountability plays a key office, as the suspension of the usual rule of law can create uncertainties regarding the attribution of responsibilities to specific actors regarding key issues, such every bit human rights protection (Welch, 2007) regarding healthcare for frail and vulnerable people.

The land of exception concept has rarely been invoked in accounting and accountability studies. From an institutional perspective, systems of accountability (Roberts and Scapens, 1985) become non just subjective formulations but rather socially constructed phenomena that provide actors with a common framework for the shared understanding of social reality, and consequently they can be used by governmental actors to construct a shared understanding of social reality.

Analyses of accountability have long been developed in accounting research, yielding considerable insights into the competing types of accountability logics and rationales (Baker, 2014; Dillard and Vinnari, 2019; Everett and Friesen, 2010; Grossi et al., 2019; Rana and Hoque, 2020; Sargiacomo, 2015; Sargiacomo et al., 2014; Sargiacomo and Walker, 2020; Sciulli, 2018; Walker, 2016). Indeed, demands for increased institutional accountability have been regularly framed to assume that it is always and unambiguously desirable (Munro and Mouritsen, 1996). In this realm, the importance of accountability topics has frequently been considered in terms of the book of disclosure related to the disclosed bug (Beattie and Thomson, 2007; Unerman, 2000).

A connexion between the state of exception and accountability has been established in run a risk management studies, whereby accountability has been considered capably of reducing or amplifying risks when an empty legal infinite exists (Huber and Scheytt, 2013). The land of exception poses challenges and requires a reconsideration of the risk management of uncertainties at the institutional level (Tan and Enderwick, 2006) and the reconsideration of accountability as a disquisitional event.

During states of exception, accountability may exist connected with the specificities of leadership and culture or with the adoption of tailored plans to face the emergency (Wilson, 2020). In effect, the spread and impact of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-nineteen, is hither to stay (Kissler et al., 2020) and the idea of exception in relation to the pandemic may require that accountability be articulated in unlike ways, depending on the spread of the virus within a specific context to address protean needs. I stream of this body of the literature portrays accountability as a subjectively constructed notion that changes with context (Garfinkel, 1894; Pesci et al., 2020) and consequently can translate into unlike ways of being shaped. This literature studies the many forms that accountability may take, whose dimensions of significant depend on the social institutional weather condition in which relations of accountability are enacted and experienced (Sinclair, 1995).

The irresolute nature of accountability has been well documented in the area of management accounting. Ahrens (1996), for example, introduced the notion of the "style of accountability," defining it as "a heuristic device to explicate some of the ways in which […] notions of "good management", to which organisational members hold themselves and each other accountable, tin exist implicated in the shaping of very different roles for management accountants and their practise" (Ahrens, 1996, p. 140). This construct has helped to conjecture the specific "ways in which accounting was implicated in processes of accountability" (Ahrens, 1996, p. 170).

This paper uses the concept notion of "styles of accountability" to empirically illustrate the means in which an exceptional public governance claiming can reveal wider accountability trends. In this empirical context, each style is embedded in a singled-out mode in which the Italian authorities has discharged its duties of accountability for the exceptional measures taken too as in the individual actions and individual responsibility required for the measures' success. In particular, the main features of possible styles of accountability related to these modes can exist inferred by referring to the literature that, in contexts where humanitarian issues are involved, tries to betoken out how accountability has been and/or should be shaped.

Sargiacomo (2015) used Agamben'due south (2005) notion of states of exception to examine how calculative practices and nomenclature systems helped guide emergency responses to the 2009 earthquake in Italian republic'due south Abruzzo region. The study highlighted that, during the state of exception, "provisional exceptional measures are transformed into "a technique of government"" (Sargiacomo, 2015, p. 70; Agamben, 2005, pp. ii–three). The evolution of calculative practices and the infrequent measures that interpret in government techniques may be regarded every bit key features in relation to the evolution of dissimilar styles of accountability during a state of exception.

Theoretical enquiries have also challenged some positions set out in the existing accountability literature. These challenges are represented past the "burden that accountability may place on the accountable cocky who is expected to provide a disarming business relationship even in situations where this is extremely hard or even incommunicable" (Messner, 2009, p. 919). The provision of convincing accounts can acquire particular urgency during times of exception that originate from the demand to protect human beings. Nevertheless, established and sound accountability practices for facing such situations are lacking; moreover, accountability practices – fifty-fifty those relating to humanitarian fields – have been criticized for their focus on accounting simply for positive performances and for their lack of focus on true compassion. Thus, an exam of the apparent lack of accountability in such contexts can help in understanding which elements accountability should encompass in states of exception relating to humanitarian issues. In particular, the literature (Everett and Friesen, 2010) suggests that a proper accountability style when dealing with humanitarian needs should focus on sentiments such as "compassion". The word "compassion" derives its original meaning the Latin cum pateo, which suggests identification with the pain of others, which is particularly crucial when humanitarian needs are at stake.

Similarly, some authors have noted that accountability during times of exception may non be effective attributable to the excessive accent on technical devices and calculations that are unable to assess the impact on responsibility. Baker (2014), for instance, studied breakdowns in accountability during and after Hurricane Katrina and ended that governments "relied to an excessive extent on a calculative accountability… instead of a calculative accountability they should have relied more on the "potential of accountability to enhance levels of responsibleness for the other"" (Baker, 2014, p. 621; McKernan, 2012, p. 259). Consequently, accountability styles in time of exception should as well include the evolution of a linkage between calculative accountability (or accounting practices) and their effective use in enhancing responsibleness.

Other papers have investigated accounting in the context of disasters that determine a country of exception, emphasizing the role of individuals who participate in the accountability procedure (Sargiacomo and Walker, 2020) and introducing the notion of "shared responsibility" (Sciulli, 2018), wherein each actor "has a responsibility for their well-being" (Sciulli, 2018, p. 42). Sciulli's (2018) work focuses on the fact that "shared responsibleness" must be communicated to the community to allow actors to presume an active role in public adventure governance (Sciulli, 2018, p. 41). The individual participation in the accountability procedure that culminates in a shared responsibility could exist considered a key desirable characteristic of the styles of accountability that may develop during a country of exception associated with humanitarian issues.

In sum, these studies indicated that accountability could constitute one technique for enhancing citizens' responsibility in facing humanitarian problems in times of exception. Certainly, the difficulty in translating accountability into effective responsibleness at the individual level suggests that in order to build styles of accountability that can be considered constructive in time of exception, information technology is fundamental that an approach reaches the individual sphere to enhance a shared responsibility.

Notably, the COVID-19 pandemic has non had the usual temporal characteristics of disasters (which tend to occur within a limited period and take a clear starting time and end) and consequently, in a similar context, it is argued that unlike styles of accountability are developed and evolve over time. The following section sets out the research design.

3. Research pattern

This paper is based on a single exploratory example study that examines the Italian government'south account-giving practices during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. This approach was selected for the flexibility information technology allowed in acquiring new insights into the emerging miracle under investigation (Yin, 2004). Italia represents a suitable context for this analysis because it was the showtime European country to be significantly impacted by SARS-CoV-2 and thus had to cope with this unprecedented situation before other Western nations (Boccia et al., 2020; Molinari, 2020).

The analysis addressed by this research covers the menstruum from January 1, 2020 to Baronial 7, 2020. The starting date was chosen because it represents the development of global awareness that People's republic of china was experiencing a new and dangerous health crisis. The stop appointment coincides with the appointment on which the Italian authorities issued a decree outlining economic support measures to assist the country's recovery and resumption of activities. It also represents the conclusion of the offset cycle of the country of exception (Agamben, 2005) caused by the spread of COVID-nineteen. In this first bicycle, it is possible to observe a progressive development of norms and calculative practices in response to the spread of the pandemic, the institutionalization of a shared responsibleness among all citizens and the first results of the application of norms and the assumption of shared responsibleness, thanks to which the gravity of the health emergency fades, leaving more room for economical recovery measures.

This case written report analyses publicly available government data, including reports, press conferences, websites, legal acts and speeches. The classification of the information focused primarily on the material obtained through analysis of the press conferences held by the Prime Minister and the Italian Ceremonious Protection Department (future CPD), which were later on complemented past, and integrated with, other cloth. The CPD supports the Italian Prime Government minister and the Italian government in coordinating all national resources to protect the population in the event of a serious emergency. Within this report timeframe, the CPD arranged 68 press conferences, while the Prime number Minister arranged 26 printing conferences, thus developing the Italian government'southward accountability to the population during the period under analysis (run into Appendixes ane and 2).

The researchers transcribed all press conferences given by the CPD and Prime Government minister using publicly available online subtitle extractor software and downloaded video recordings. The transcriptions of the 94 press conferences served equally input for the coding procedure, resulting in five overarching phases consolidation, each representing a dissever belittling dimension of research and, consequently, a dissimilar style of accountability. The content of the conferences was classified according to the development of specific bug identified by the literature: the evolution of norms and calculative techniques (Sargiacomo, 2015); the volume of topics related to informing the population on the spread of the virus (Beattie and Thomson, 2007; Unerman, 2000; Baker, 2014); the use of rhetorical language addressed to foster pity (Everett and Friesen, 2010; Baker, 2014) and the exigency of sharing responsibleness (Sargiacomo and Walker, 2020; Sciulli, 2018). The written report'southward anterior nature permits the detection of differences in the development of the same issues and leads to the definition of five styles of accountability: rebuttal, dismissal, reactive, proactive and coactive.

In addition, a quantitative content analysis supported the definition of the 5 styles of accountability. This analysis was performed using the downloaded press conference videos to capture duration, topics discussed, speakers and the number and length of questions immune. The number and length of the press conferences was a central object of investigation in this study as a proxy for the "book" of disclosure, which is considered in the literature as directly linked to the importance attributed to a certain topic (Beattie and Thomson, 2007; Unerman, 2000). Assay of the videos yielded output on how many minutes speakers spent on each discussed topic. From the Prime Minister's conferences, 6 main topic categories emerged (health, safety, economics, national policy, education and foreign policy), while, from the CPD's conferences, half dozen categories emerged (wellness, safety, economics, national policy, education and foreign policy). This approach immune the researchers to obtain a first impression of the importance of communicating COVID-related data. In this regard, item accent should exist placed on the repetition of forms of communication and concepts that are considered able to "impress" the information's receiver (Pesci et al., 2015).

The 2nd source of data was the public online databases through which the Ministry building of Health and the CPD updated data on the evolution of the pandemic. This database contains information on the spreading of the infection, such equally the epidemiological curve and data on the virological testing undertaken. These conferences and databases were considered the main accountability tools adopted to inform the Italian population regarding the country of exception arising from the COVID-19 pandemic (Agamben, 2005). Other documents that were analysed included two reports from international health bodies (European Centre for Affliction Prevention and Control (ECDPC), 2020; WHO, 2020a) and i report from the Italian National Social Security Institute [Istituto Nazionale della Previdenza Sociale (INPS), 2020].

The last source of information was the legal acts enacted past the Italian government and Parliament during the period analysed. A total of 30 regulatory sources were downloaded and summarised (see Appendixes one and 2).

The following section presents the assay of the 5 phases in the context of the styles of accountability heuristics (Ahrens, 1996).

four. Empirical analysis and discussion

This department examines how the CPD discussed the circumstances surrounding the development of the COVID-nineteen pandemic by revealing five styles of accountability – rebuttal, dismissal, reactive, proactive and coactive.

In detail, the different styles of accountability show a progressive development along some issues:

1. Techniques of governance (the CPD's office and technicians' role) and accounting (development of dashboard showing the numbers of the spread of the pandemic) that, as suggested past Sargiacomo (2015), are tools for governing the state of exception;

2. The volume and topics of accountability devoted to informing the population on norms and reasons for them (Beattie and Thomson, 2007; Unerman, 2000; Baker, 2014);

3. The willingness to plant an emotional link with the population (Everett and Friesen, 2010; Bakery, 2014);

4. The development of a concept of shared responsibility between government and citizens (Sargiacomo and Walker, 2020; Sciulli, 2018).

The fact that a style of accountability embeds points 3 and 4 represents an evolution of that way in contrast to those that do not embed such points because, as previously explained, the failure of accountability systems in the humanitarian context has been attributed to the absenteeism of such conditions (Everett and Friesen, 2010; Baker, 2014; Sciulli, 2018; Sargiacomo and Walker, 2020).

Table i summarises several key findings that help interpret the development of accountability in five phases.

4.1 Phase 1 – Rebuttal manner of accountability

During this stage, documents from international and national bodies, such equally the WHO (2020a, b), the ECDPC (2020) and – shortly thereafter – the INPS (2020), were made bachelor. In January 2020, the WHO alerted the world to the potential rapid global spread of the COVID-19 infection (Jamieson, 2020; WHO, 2020a), urging all countries to respond actively (The National Post, 2020). The ECDPC also published a report on Jan 26, stating that "the potential impact of 2019-nCoV outbreaks is high [as] further global spread is likely" (ECDPC, 2020, p. two), and that "the impact of the late detection of an imported example in an Eu/EEA country without the application of advisable infection prevention and command measures would exist loftier, […] the risk of secondary transmission in the community setting is estimated to be very loftier" (ECDPC, 2020, p. 2). While the outbreak of the coronavirus in China was increasingly receiving global attending, the Italian government remained relatively inert and silent. The only briefing convened past the Prime number Minister during this phase was organized on January 31 as the inevitable determination to the accountability silence of this phase.

This style of accountability is best described by the term "rebuttal." In the "rebuttal" style of accountability, political institutions resist justifying the possible implementation of strict measures, such as those limiting freedom of move or mandating the closure of public and individual facilities. In add-on, the lack of accountability, demonstrated by the singled-out lack of any organized information made available to the population, indicates that the government did not perceive a physical societal need for information during this phase (Walker, 2016).

This state of inertia was abruptly interrupted on January 31 (the cease of the get-go stage) past the hospitalization of 2 Chinese tourists in Rome due to an initially suspected (and afterwards confirmed) COVID-19 infection: "Two Chinese tourists are now hospitalized at the Spallanzani Hospital in Rome […] the Coronavirus has reached Italian republic" (Il Messaggero, 2020). The test results shook the rebuttal stage into an initial less static approach, which resulted in the Italian authorities ordering the cancellation of all direct flights coming from China (Sole24Ore, 2020). The decision was criticized because of the impossibility of checking people who were coming to Italian republic from China using non-direct flights. In this regard, Sargiacomo (2015) suggested that accountability action during the showtime phases of an emergency can presume trivial forms. Late in this phase, the authorities released the get-go act specifically designed as a regulatory response to the emergency. The legal form chosen by the regime was represented by a "authorities decree", rather than a Parliamentary Act to facilitate a more than rapid response to the exceptional state of affairs. From that moment onwards, government decrees take become the standard arrangement used in governing the country of exception; indeed, exceptional measures take been effectively used equally "a technique of government" (Agamben, 2005, pp. two–three; Sargiacomo, 2015).

The unique and brief (4.16 min) press conference organized past the Italian government at the cease of this phase marked the initiation of stage 2 with a reassuring message: "nosotros have one of the best health services in the world […] these are the conditions for managing this issue in a very positive and transparent way" (Prime Minister's quick press briefing, January 31, 2020). This rhetoric of accountability in this initial stage recalls the need to brand the narrative conform to the expectations of the receivers, or to marshal "the rhetoric and practice with wider public discourses" (Ahrens, 1996, p. 168).

four.2 Phase 2 – Dismissal style of accountability

Different the "rebuttal" style, the "dismissal" manner of accountability reflects an acceptance and internalization of the touch on of the SARS-CoV-2, admitting in such a way that it did not drastically affect confidence in the regime'southward ability to protect the population from the outbreak.

The second phase began but afterwards the issuing of the starting time emergency decree ordering that all direct flights from China be cancelled: the moment from which accountability (besides associated with the comment, to the just issued prescript, during following institutional press conferences) evolved in a new form. During this phase, three important actions were taken past the government, the first of which was the establishment of the Operating Commission (Feb 5, 2020). The Operating Commission included several experts covering multiple scientific fields. This action constitutes the first development of governance techniques for the state of exception (Sargiacomo, 2015).

The second activeness was a brief press briefing (1.46 min) at the beginning of the phase (February half-dozen, 2020), with the Prime Minister speaking (in line with the "dismissal" style of accountability) of the Italian regime's adoption of "utmost precautions and the principle of maximum precaution" to "reassure citizens and protect their health as much as possible" defining the "Civil Protection Department [CPD] an international flagship of monstrous efficiency" (Prime Government minister's Quick Conference, February 6, 2020) which has "not been reported suspicious cases considering the mechanism works" (Civil Protection Section Press Briefing, Feb 5, 2020). An initial form of dialogue with the population is implemented even if no exigency of enhancing pity or sharing responsibleness is either mentioned or felt (Everett and Friesen, 2010; Sargiacomo and Walker, 2020; Sciulli, 2018).

The 3rd action comprised two press conferences led by the head of the CPD to report to the population on the emergency'southward evolution. The first COVID-xix-specific CPD press conference was held on February 5, 2020 and the second was held on February xviii, 2020. These conferences' topics were mainly related to safety issues (east.g. pandemic-spread control measures, social distancing measures and train station, port and aerodrome controls) and policy issues (eastward.1000. the explanation of new governmental laws adopted to halt the spread of COVID-19 in Italy). This phase was characterized by several restrictions, limited to the command of Italian citizens coming from Cathay or resident in China. For citizens coming from Communist china, temperature screening at airports was mandatory. However, the need to test the Italian resident population for coronavirus at this stage was neither considered nor discussed.

The accountability mechanisms translated into several press conferences (Beattie and Thomson, 2007; Unerman, 2000; Baker, 2014) in which some initial – simply express – safety and policy measures were presented. It is worth noting that, during these press conferences, no questions were allowed, suggesting that the accountability was mono-directional and that "shared responsibility" (Sciulli, 2018) was neither considered nor provided at this stage. This express account-giving is non unsurprising at this point. Every bit existing research suggests (Ahrens, 1996; Garfinkel, 1984), accountability rhetoric and exercise are usually aligned with wider public discourses, which in this period were mainly related to the Chinese context and to how the pandemic was dealt with in China.

Until February 20, 2020, indeed, it seemed that COVID-19 could impact only people that had been in Communist china because the merely two hospitalized people to date were the two Chinese tourists in Rome. Consequently, accountability was mainly centred on control measures regarding people coming from China.

However, on the night of February 20, the get-go Italian was hospitalized in Codogno (near Milan). Until that point, the express accountability regarding COVID-nineteen had been provided in an attempt to avert potential concerns due to the pandemic by controlling the population's advisory needs with a "dismissal" approach (Walker, 2016).

iv.three Phase three – Reactive style of accountability

The hospitalization of patient ane gave ascension to the third phase. During this stage, the COVID-19 outbreak began to spread in some areas of Italy (WHO, 2020b), and the government undertook exceptional measures to contain the infection. From Feb 22, 2020, all schools were closed, and the regime imposed mandatory quarantine for all citizens resident in three cities in Northern Italian republic and for all those people who tested positive for COVID-19, irrespective of the area in which they lived. The mandatory quarantine was extended to 11 cities in Northern Italy on March 1, 2020. The number of people tested for COVID-19 per day in this menstruation was between 3,000 and 4,000 (Corriere, 2020).

Accountability regarding the development of the state of exception (Agamben, 2005) was provided initially on Feb 22 by a first printing briefing held past the Prime Minister (37.31 min) along with the Wellness Minister and the caput of the CPD. Five further Prime number Minister's conferences were held (in 3 conferences, the Prime Minister was alone, while in two conferences, he was joined past the Ministers of Health and Economics and Finance). Ii additional printing conferences with the Ministers of Justice and Economics and Finance were scheduled. The conference with the Justice Minister clarified the urgency of providing a legal basis for the developing state of exception (Agamben, 2005).

The Prime Minister stressed the justifications for the state of exception, leveraging the issue of responsibleness: "we are aware of our responsibilities […] we know the imminence of the health issue and the implications on economic science […] it is a hard decision and we asked for an opinion to our technical and scientific commission" (press conference with the Economics and Finance Government minister, March five, 2020). Nonetheless, in this early third stage, the accountability orientation was based on the regime's supposition of responsibility that was joined and entrusted to the technicians (Agamben, 2005; Sargiacomo, 2015). During this menstruum, a farther ix Prime Government minister's conferences took place. He was joined in four of these by other Ministers to respond to key issues related to the consequences of the lockdown (i.eastward. economics and finance, labour and social policies, education and economic evolution).

From February 22, CPD daily press conferences took identify every evening at 6.00 p.one thousand. The daily broadcasting of the CPD press conference reflects an evident increase in the public emergency accountability effort to inform and communicate with the citizens. In the same way, the volume of accountability rapidly inflated during this phase (Beattie and Thomson, 2007; Unerman, 2000). Regarding the content of the public disclosure, the accountability system expanded from existence solely the responsibility of the authorities, technicians and experts to a more participatory approach in which responsibility was discussed with the aim of enhancing the understanding of the primary issues and forging an emotional link with people who had become accustomed to the daily conference broadcast (Everett and Friesen, 2010). The accountability system's progressive switch from mere technical to more than emotional content was reflected in two aspects. The first is the regular cadence with which the regime and the scientific committee addressed the population. The recurring daily broadcast at the same time seemed to establish an almost familiar "tradition" between the emergency managers and citizens. The 2nd aspect is the rhetoric used by the Prime Government minister, who emotionally linked his regime'south functioning with the growing sense of trust in the citizens' behaviour by stating "we have fabricated a choice in terms of wellness policy, very consequent, very linear; we believe that trust with our citizens is the essence of our political action" (Prime Minister Conference Printing, 25 Feb 2020). Furthermore, the Prime number Minister aimed to link the public sentiment to trust in him every bit an individual: "Right now the disputes have no value for me because I have to stay focused with the maximum concentration of my physical mental strength to pursue the goal of protecting the health of Italian citizens" (Prime Government minister Printing Conference, 25 February 2020). The consequence of the population'southward prophylactic and governmental responsibility adult during this phase, increasing in salience.

During this stage, from February 22 to March half dozen, 42 press conferences were circulate (with an average duration of xv.43 min). The first briefing of this phase included the caput of the CPD – who was generally the main speaker and coordinated all the printing conferences – the Prime Minister, the Minister of Health and the head of the National College of Medicine. Additional institutional representatives participated with the purpose of providing more sophisticated justifications for the government's actions to the population (Bovens, 2007).

The topics covered by the CPD's conferences began to include mainly quantitative health data (coronavirus accounting) regarding the spread of the pandemic and qualitative information on the measurement and policies undertaken past the government to counteract it. The progressive intensification of accountability data reporting reflects Sargiacomo'southward (2015) ascertainment that accounting systems tend to become more technical when the state of emergency consolidates and is structured. Indeed, during this phase, the accounting numbers became increasingly technical/calculative (Baker, 2014) and were mainly related to health data regarding the spread of the infection (see Appendixes 5 and 6), encompassing the epidemiological curve, the number of people currently affected by the virus, the number of patients in intensive care, the number of deaths attributed to the virus, the number of recovered patients and the number of coronavirus tests performed (c. iii,000 on average per day). About one-half of each press conference was devoted to commenting on these figures. National policy and safety topics that had been the object of accountability in the previous phase were relegated to a minor part of the briefing. Other topics also emerged as economic and foreign policy issues began to be disclosed. During this phase, the account-giving during conferences realised by the head of the CPD and by the plethora of experts chosen by the government was followed by questions from journalists representing the wider discourses (Ahrens, 1996; Garfinkel, 1984) related to public opinion.

Health and safety were the main topics discussed in this stage, supporting the government'due south justification of their decision to restrict citizens' freedom in some regions (Bovens, 2007; Roberts and Scapens, 1985).

During this phase, in which the quarantine of some national areas was enforced, efforts to provide a more than structured (Sargiacomo, 2015) and reactive accountability style were observed. This manner was congenital upon the multiplicity of conferences that took identify, increased coronavirus accounting reporting loss of lives, the infection charge per unit, the number of hospitalized people, the number of tests performed, etc., during the conferences, and on the expertise of scientists who had been called to participate in the public declarations of the CPD to develop accountability (Ahrens, 1996; Bovens, 2007). The multiplicity of events, people, and explanations created a repetition effect on the public'south memory and emotions that helped to manage public opinion (Pesci et al., 2015) and helped to develop the public's emotional connection with the health emergency (Everett and Friesen, 2010; Bakery, 2014).

4.4 Stage 4 – Proactive style of accountability

During this phase, all regions of Italy were affected by the spread of the coronavirus. On March 8, 2020, the authorities adopted a new decree (Dcpm viii/03/xx) extending the restrictive measures to the entire Lombardy region and xiv provinces in Central and Northern Italy. The following solar day, the Prime Minister addressed the nation in several conferences to the nation with the aim of providing prove of the emergency and justifying (Bovens, 2007; Roberts and Scapens, 1985) the tough decisions regarding the state of exception that had led to the lockdown (Agamben, 2005). On March xi, 2020, the government decreed a nationwide lockdown: all professional and private activities, unless essential, were banned.

Before the severe lockdown imposed on March 11, two consecutive Prime number Government minister's printing conferences to the nation had been held (21.27 min on March 8 and 18.38 min on March 9). These conferences were broadcast simultaneously by all main national Television channels. This arroyo to communication was unusual for an Italian Prime Minister and was intended to accept maximum effect on the population by offering evidence of the demand to extend the country of exception, thus encouraging the citizens' collaboration (Agamben, 2005). The first briefing emphasized the necessity of "sacrifice" and "responsibility" for helping society's most vulnerable (Prime Minister's press conference, March 8). These words were intended to provoke an emotional response and to ready the population for the sacrifices required from all citizens to build a "shared responsibility" (Sciulli, 2018).

During the second conference, the need to "renounce something for the sake of Italia, of our loved people, parents, and grandparents" was also stressed, along with the need to act "immediately" and to exist "collaborative to conform to the more restrictive laws" by underlining that the government had no option but to act in such a manner (Prime Minister'southward press conference, March ix, 2020). The Prime number Minister'south statements included words such every bit "sake" and "love," appealing to the citizens' emotions and using accountability to heighten feelings of compassion towards vulnerable people (Everett and Friesen, 2010; Baker, 2014). This style of speaking, unusual for Italian politics, aimed to appeal strongly to the public sentiment of a population traditionally reputed to be passionate equally a means of establishing an emotional connectedness and invoking the citizens' sentiments (Everett and Friesen, 2010).

In addition to these 2 initial impactful conferences, the Prime Minister held five further conferences lonely and four others with other Ministers (Minister of Economy, Government minister of Labour, Minister of Economic Development and Government minister of Education). These press conferences placed particular emphasis on economic science, which before long became a cardinal accountability event. Indeed, economic science was the primary topic discussed by the Prime Minister at regular intervals, mainly during the press conferences held on March eleven, 21 and 28 and Apr vi, suggesting a proactive mental attitude aimed at addressing and preventing the economic consequences of the lockdown.

On March 7, the CPD made bachelor on its website an online dataset dashboard reporting quantitative information near the spread of the pandemic (Encounter Appendix three).

The daily CPD press conferences continued and, predictably, focused primarily on wellness issues. The numbers cited during these press conferences were those available via the online database. Special emphasis was given to the try to increment virus testing, which unsaid investments in laboratory equipment and in the recruitment of the necessary professional skills. Another important topic was the need to increase the number of intensive care beds in hospitals.

At this phase, more information types were provided (such every bit the online database), and it became increasingly evident that the human relationship between bookkeeping and accountability systems had go closer, implicating bookkeeping in the processes of accountability (Ahrens, 1996; Bakery, 2014).

The health experts called to participate in these conferences justified the lockdown as a crucial element aimed at saving lives: "measures undertaken by the government are the crucial element now" (head of the National College of Medicine, CPD's daily printing conference, March x), with the result that they were perceived as both necessary and justified.

Other topics connected with condom, economics and national and foreign policies connected to be the object of disclosure during both the CPD's and Prime Minister'due south conferences (encounter Appendixes 4–seven). However, the Prime Minister'southward conferences devoted more infinite to economic issues, while the CPD'south conferences remained focused on wellness information, with increasing space devoted to this topic. Furthermore, the Prime Minister'southward printing conferences during this stage included increasingly rhetorical language aimed at persuading the audition and enhancing their appointment: "Presently, I am admittedly confident that nosotros will reap the benefits of these sacrifices when everything is over, we will all live a new leap together for Italian republic" (Prime Minister Press Conference, 4 April 2020), "nosotros are learning what being ways […] fifty-fifty more now in this menses of difficulty, being Italians ways to be courageous to be supportive, to exist determined and cohesive" (Prime number Minister Printing Conference, 4 Apr 2020). Words such every bit "sacrifice", "courage", "support" and "cohesion" became part of the authorities's vocabulary aimed at developing a mutual sense of shared responsibility (Sciulli, 2018).

In summary, accountability became more sophisticated by developing the topics in detail with the help of experts who were able to sustain different discourses (Bovens, 2007; Sargiacomo, 2015). The other reason for this development was the population'due south informational need, reflected in the questions posed past journalists, which also began to shift towards economic and governmental policy (Garfinkel, 1984). During this phase, the press conference speakers' expertise broadened, and discussions with journalists were e'er allowed.

The increasing need for justification (Roberts, 1991) of the government'south restrictions led to a proactive accountability style that encompassed the regime's employ of a rhetorical linguistic communication (Ahrens, 1996) in the conferences, the increasing number of conferences (both by the Prime Minister and the CPD), the channels of communication and accounting regarding the spread of the coronavirus. Taken together, these elements of accountability way suggested an initial shaping of a sense of responsibility that was meant, as much every bit possible, to be shared between business relationship givers and receivers (Everett and Friesen, 2010; Sciulli, 2018) and in which the distance betwixt accounting and accountability was reduced (Ahrens, 1996).

The reactive phase suggests a progressive "emotionalization" of the link between the emergency managers and the population that formed the basis for edifice a shared responsibility during the proactive phase. Past extension, the language used in the increasing number of conferences became increasingly "rhetoric" during the proactive stage.

4.v Phase 5 – Coactive style of accountability

The Italian regime's way of accountability during this phase of the pandemic may be described equally "coactive." In this phase, the political institutions discussed the relaxation of some restrictions as long as the population connected to abide past the government's guidelines. The core attribute of the coactive style here is that the accounts given by the government aimed to "inform" and "explain" the conduct of the political players as well as to "assess" and "validate" the population's efforts to respect the guidelines [nether the possibility of further and (allegedly) stricter lockdowns].

On Apr 23, 2020, the Prime number Minister, during a long press conference (43.ane min), informed the population of the gradual reopening of business and private activities. The Prime number Minister spoke nearly the necessity of maintaining surveillance of the spread of COVID-19 during this new phase of the state of exception and the demand to consider "what each individual tin do for the community to permit a faster recovery" (Prime number Government minister'southward press briefing, April 23). This phase, during which many restrictions were abandoned, necessitated reminders to citizens that greater freedom meant greater responsibility at the individual level (Sciulli, 2018).

During this stage, five further Prime Minister'southward press conferences were held, for ane of which he was joined past the Economics and Finance Government minister, the Education Minister and the Economic and Development Minister.

In item, during the April 26, 2020 press briefing, the Prime Minister thanked citizens for their sacrifice, but underlined the necessity of "respect for the recommendations" to ensure that all the success achieved thus far was not undone. The Prime number Government minister appealed to the "love" for the people and for Italy to stress the demand to maintain social distancing and to use protective masks (Prime Minister's conference, April 26, 2020). This period was chosen past the authorities the "2nd phase of the COVID-19 pandemic counteraction plan" and began with the progressive reopening of concern activities (fix for May four, 2020).

The Prime Minister called over again for "beloved" and "sacrifice", reinforcing feelings of compassion and the need for shared responsibility (Everett and Friesen, 2010; Sciulli, 2018) in the accountability rhetoric of this last examined phase.

The population'southward new needs were too addressed past the Prime number Minister's conferences. In particular, issues connected with education could exist resolved were perceived every bit urgent by the population, as evidenced past the questions from journalists to the government. During this phase, the CPD'due south conferences were reduced to twice weekly (from April 20–30, 2020) and eventually ceased in May.

The online dashboard was maintained and constantly developed with updated quantitative information by the CPD. These data were commented on during the CPD's conferences and again, they remained the focus of these conferences, although disclosure regarding the economic situation increased. During the CPD conferences in this phase, fourth dimension was invariably and increasingly allocated for questions (on boilerplate, lasting 35.2 min). The topics discussed during question times in the witnessed an increasing interest in national policy actions, which seemed to take get increasingly urgent in terms of public opinion (Ahrens, 1996; Garfinkel, 1984).

Coronavirus testing capacity was maintained at the highest level throughout this stage.

This phase reflected diminished efforts to provide accountability through public events such as press conferences. Finally, during the conferences, a change in the orientation of the disclosure became apparent, with the increasingly salient role of data aimed at addressing the population's pressing economic needs and the need to address future issues related to education and national policy deportment to address the information required to mitigate future risks (Tan and Enderwick, 2006).

v. Conclusions

This newspaper aimed to increment our knowledge and agreement of accountability in times of exception. To accomplish this aim, the newspaper critically analysed the mechanisms through which the Italian regime sought to combine public governance and public accountability bug in an endeavor to urge shared responsibility in times of exception. Drawing on the styles of accountability concept, this paper demonstrated how the government responded to the COVID-19 challenge. Through the assay of publicly available regime data complemented by, and integrated with, other material, the paper provides empirical bear witness of how the evolution of the pandemic was related to accountability. The analysis revealed five overarching phases, each representing a different fashion of accountability. By identifying five styles of accountability (rebuttal, dismissal, reactive, proactive and coactive), the findings show that the country of exception was characterized by the dissimilar ways in which the authorities justified their bear. In particular, during the initial phases of the pandemic, the accountability styles were focused on the government'due south responsibleness, while in the last 2 phases, accountability focused on citizens' responsibleness (Everett and Friesen, 2010; Baker, 2014) by creating a stronger sense of "shared responsibility" (Sciulli, 2018).

This newspaper contributes to the literature past offering the understanding that times of exception lend distinguishing features to accountability; in particular, information technology shows that the protean (Walker, 2016) nature of accountability in times of exception related to humanitarian needs must develop towards more shared forms that can upshot from a previously established emotional link with the actors involved. The more than the process of communication is effective in creating an emotional ground for entrusting responsibility to citizens, the more successful the upshot is likely to exist. In this regard, the paper builds on the existing literature that evidenced the need for an accountability that was more focused on compassion (Everett and Friesen, 2010; Baker, 2014), just in this paper, the role of the authorities in enhancing such sentiments is investigated. This newspaper too advances existing research on shared accountability (Sciulli, 2018) past showing that accountability can interpret into an effective tool to assist citizens assume responsibleness when the private emotional level is involved in the process. "Shared responsibility" when the need to protect the population surpasses the usual legal boundaries can too exert a powerful impact past protecting the population through drifts in authoritarian forms (Welch, 2007) of governing the country of exception. Finally, the newspaper also contributes to developing studies on the effects of governments' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic (Grossi et al., 2020), showing that accountability styles may influence the ability to govern by enhancing the responsibility of the whole of society in relation to the necessary promotion and protection of universal wellness care (De Villiers et al., 2020).

This paper has limitations that open up avenues for future research. An important limitation is that the analysis developed in this paper is specific to the Italian setting and concerns a limited time window. In addition, future studies should consider the linkages between accountability styles and factors such as leadership, civilisation and plans to manage the state of exception in one or more than countries (Wilson, 2020).

Figures

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Figure A1

The CPD's online database showing key data at the national and local levels on the spread of the pandemic: number of agile cases; number of people recovered; deaths; and total number of infected people (Apr 23, 2020)

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Figure A2

The CPD's printing conference topics (corporeality of disclosure by topic): phases ii–5

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Figure A3

The CPD's press briefing topics (amount of disclosure by topic based on journalists' questions): phases 2–v

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

Figure A2 amount of disclosure for each category of topics of the CPD conferences (phase 2 to stage five).

Appendix 4

Effigy A3 amount of disclosure for each category of topics discussed between the CPD and journalists (phases 2 to v).

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Farther reading

Martinez, D.E. and Cooper, D.J. (2017), "Assembling international development: accountability and the disarticulation of a social motility", Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 57, pp. 18-32.

Corresponding author

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Source: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JPBAFM-06-2020-0091/full/html

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