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Accountability and financial control as 'patriotic' strategies: Accomptants and the public accounts committee in late 17th and early 18th - Century Ireland
Abstract
The decades immediately following the Glorious Revolution in 1688 witnessed a variety of political, social and structural responses to this cataclysmic event. In Ireland, religious conflict and economic under-development, as well as the devastation of war from 1689 to 1691, combined to ensure that the Anglo-Irish body politic found it difficult to capture the fruits of success from an English polity that had gradually accreted to itself much of the political power and economic wealth of the country. By 1704, however, the Anglo- Irish had managed to appropriate to themselves some of the economic and constitutional benefits of the Revolution by exploiting various parliamentary practices and structures. One of their strategies centered around developing and leveraging the role of the Public Accounts Committee as a means of imposing accountability on the executive and its officials. To achieve this the members were required to understand, contest and reconfigure official accounting information.
... Accounting and accountability are considered social practices across a broad array of settings and are recognized as fulfilling an extensive spectrum of aims. In accounting history, these topics have often intertwined and served as a starting point for observing and analyzing, for example, the public sector, the private sector, nonprofit organizations, and religious institutions (O'Regan 2003;Lloyd-Jones, Lewis, Matthews, and Maltby 2005;Sargiacomo and Gomes 2011;Moerman and van der Laan 2011;Moggi, Filippi, Leardini, and Rossi 2016;Manetti, Bellucci, and Bagnoli 2020). ...
This paper aims to expand the analysis of publishing patterns in specialized international accounting history journals, focusing on the period from 2000 to 2023. The objective is to shed light on how this field of accounting research has evolved throughout the new millennium, adopting a bibliometric approach. The study encompasses 1,044 documents. We examined metrics such as authorship distribution, geographical diversity, and thematic orientations, employing a methodology that quantitatively maps the intellectual landscape of accounting history for a comprehensive view. Our findings indicate widespread participation in the scientific debate, with contributions from around the globe and a growing trend in co-authored articles. Furthermore, our analysis identifies eight thematic clusters. In summary, this paper charts and systematizes these contributions, pinpointing key research areas and offering insights into the latest advancements and potential future directions in accounting history studies.
... The accounting literature generally conceptualizes the emergence and operation of such societal accounting systems by referring to them as constituting a "powerful calculative apparatus" (Miller & O'Leary, 1994) that mediates the political sphere (Miller & Rose, 1990) with consumers' everyday lives (Jeacle, 2015;Jeacle & Carter, 2011). These and other accounting scholars (Miller, 2001(Miller, , 1990Neu, 2000;O'Regan, 2003;Rose & Miller, 1992) have discussed the political power of calculative practices (Miller, 2001) and their ability to bring government policies to life. ...
Previous research on calculative intermediaries shows how these effectively challenge, distort, and disrupt accounting practices in ways that policy‐makers might not anticipate. The promises of surveillance capitalism—with its attendant data architectures, datafication processes, and technological sophistication—are different, supposing more accurate ways of reading individuals and greater calculative certainty overall. Yet there is little empirical research to explore how surveillance capitalism manifests itself at the organizational level, either conceptually or operationally. As a result, it remains uncertain whether such specters of omniscience are as haunting in reality as they appear in theory. We explore these themes by way of an ethnographic study into credit scoring in China, showing how intermediary organizations developed a multiplicity of credit scoring models based on machine learning and big data that differed both from original expectations and from each other. These different “renditions” of credit scoring suggest that the data architectures of surveillance capitalism are just as much subject to challenge and adaptation by intermediary organizations as calculative practices such as accounting are in more analog environments.
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... 1800-1900) [25 articles -2, 3, 10, 20, 21, 25, 27, 28, 32, 39, 43, 47, 48, 56, 57, 61, 63, 69, 70, 75, 80, 93, 102, 104, 107] c) Multiple [15 articles -6, 9, 16, 22, 52, 58, 66, 82, 84, 92, 96, 100, 101, 109, 114] d) Colonial/Imperial, Enlightenment (c. 1600-1800) [ 10 articles -2, 9, 15, 31, 46, 50, 51, 55, 91, 106] e) Ancient/Medieval (pre 1600) [8 articles -14, 45, 65, 68, 71, 74, 105, 113] f) No time focus [5 articles -13, 60, 81, 87, 111] 4) Geographic focus of the study a) UK [28 articles -3, 5, 11, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 29, 30, 35, 47, 54, 61, 64, 67, 70, 71, 72, 76, 77, 79, 80, 83, 85, 90, 99, 102 ] b) US/Canada [17 articles -4, 15, 28, 34, 40, 42, 43, 44, 53, 55, 75, 93, 96, 100, 106, 107, 110] c) Europe [17 articles -2, 10, 14, 33, 36, 37, 46, 50, 51, 59b, 62, 63, 84, 88, 91, 92 , 105] d) Multiple settings [14 articles -9, 13, 23,26, 38, 41, 52, 66, 69, 73, 82, 108, 109, 114] e) Asia/Africa, South Pacific [12 articles -6, 16, 32, 45, 49, 58, 62b, 65, 68, 74, 101, 112, 113] f) Australia, New Zealand [8 articles -1, 12, 27, 31, 56, 57, 78, 86] g) No geographical focus [4 articles -60, 81, 87, 111] h) Caribbean, Central & South America [3 articles 39, 48, 104] 5) Eclecticism a) Percentage of non-accounting to total citations (based on 100 articles) i. Greater than 75 percent (21%) [14,22,28,30,31,44,47,54,55,56,57,58,65,71,72,79,80,91,98,99,104] ii. 50 to 75 percent (25%) [6,10,11,15,32,34,37,48,61,63,67,73,74,75,81,83,87,90,92,96,101,102,107,111,112 ] iii. 25 to 50 percent (30%) [1,2,5,12,13,16,19,21,23,27,29,33,39,40,43,46,49,50,51,60,62,64,70,77,82,85,93,100,106,113] iv. ...
In a recent Accounting History article, Sy and Tinker (S&T) [2005] critique accounting history for its support of “archivalism” and empiricism in light of irrefutable arguments against these “antiquarian epistemes.” While tempted to lambaste S&T’s article as unfettered social activism rather than evidence-based historical inquiry, we focus instead on the more substantive questions S&T raise. We initially summarize their essential arguments, although some of the statements they make are contradictory in nature. We then discuss fundamental issues and genuine challenges to accounting history posed by the post-Kuhnian critique that S&T and others represent, as well as the nature and purpose of historical enquiry. We reviewed the accounting history journal articles published between 2001 and 2005 and use our findings to evaluate the broad assertions that S&T make about accounting history. We conclude that S&T’s critique is unwarranted and unjust, especially when the subject matter of the most recent accounting history articles is considered.
Purpose
The study focusses on explaining why advocates for reform to state audit in the United Kingdom (UK) in the early 1980s, focussed on improving the links between the new National Audit Office (NAO) and Parliament, rather than on traditional notions of audit independence. The study shows how this focus on the auditor's link to Parliament depends on a particular concept of liberty and relates this to the wider literature on the place of audit in democratic society.
Design/methodology/approach
Understanding the issue of independence of audit in protecting the liberties and rights of citizens needs addressed. In this article, the authors investigate the creation of audit independence in the UK in the National Audit Act (1983). To do so, the authors employ a neo-Roman concept of liberty to historical archives ranging from the late 1960s to 1983.
Findings
The study shows that advocates for audit reform in the UK from the 1960s to the 1980s were arguing for an extension to Parliament's power to hold the executive to account and that their focus was influential on the way that the new NAO was established. Using a neo-Roman concept of liberty, the authors show that they believed Parliamentary surveillance of the executive was necessary to secure liberty within the UK.
Research limitations/implications
The neo-Roman republican concept of liberty extends previous studies in considering the importance of audit for public accountability, the preservation of liberty and democracy.
Practical implications
Public sector audit can be a fundamentally democratic activity. Auditors should be alert to the constitutional importance of their work and see parliamentary accountability as a key objective.
Originality/value
The neo-Roman concept of liberty extends previous studies in considering the importance of audit for public accountability, preservation of liberty and democracy.
Building upon the insights of socio-historical accounting research this paper attempts to show accounting's centrality to major historical events. In this context, accounting is viewed as a technology which was employed in order to implement a particular political programme - the union of the Scottish and English parliaments in 1707. Accounting is presented as both a necessary and impossible technology in this context. Forging an economic compromise between Scottish and English Parliamentarians necessitated an economic calculation of the relative economic power of each country in the first instance, and some calculated reconciliation between the two in the second. However, such a calculation also proved to be impossible as competing political factions contested the figures, ostensibly on technical grounds, but substantively on an ideological basis. Furthermore, building upon the notion of impossibility, the paper shows that political programmes can sometimes be subservient to the technologies that they rely upon for their implementation. Faced with congenitally failing accounting practices the political programmes associated with union had to be modified into something that was deliverable through the constraints of the extant accountability.
Historians have engaged with accounting and business archives primarily in the areas of social and economic history. While much economic and social history draws on macro-economic data, micro-level sources have cast new light on old historical problems such as the Great Famine (1845-51) and the development of trade in Ireland and between Ireland and abroad. This paper traces the contributions of historians of Ireland to our understanding of accounting, business and financial history and maps out potential areas of research for accounting and business historians in the light of earlier and current trends in historical research. Adopting a historians' perspective, the paper will also provide a historical background and suggest potential bibliographical and archival sources to present and future accounting and business historians with a view to enhancing and enriching our understanding of the context in which accounting and business is situated in Ireland.
This paper provides a survey on studies that analyze the macroeconomic effects of intellectual property rights (IPR). The first part of this paper introduces different patent policy instruments and reviews their effects on R&D and economic growth. This part also discusses the distortionary effects and distributional consequences of IPR protection as well as empirical evidence on the effects of patent rights. Then, the second part considers the international aspects of IPR protection. In summary, this paper draws the following conclusions from the literature. Firstly, different patent policy instruments have different effects on R&D and growth. Secondly, there is empirical evidence supporting a positive relationship between IPR protection and innovation, but the evidence is stronger for developed countries than for developing countries. Thirdly, the optimal level of IPR protection should tradeoff the social benefits of enhanced innovation against the social costs of multiple distortions and income inequality. Finally, in an open economy, achieving the globally optimal level of protection requires an international coordination (rather than the harmonization) of IPR protection.
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