Accounting, love and justice
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 2004
... John Francis McKernan, Department of Accounting and Finance, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, ... more ... John Francis McKernan, Department of Accounting and Finance, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK. ... Analysis of the problem of creative compliance with accounting regulation, by McBarnett and Whelan (1992a, 1992b, 1999) and Shah (1995), shows quite clearly that ...
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Papers by McKernan John
project outlined by Benjamin Gregg in The Human Rights State
(2016). In developing our analysis of Gregg’s project, we consider
it in the context of the inspiration it draws from the work of
Hannah Arendt and Jacques Rancière. We argue that Arendt does
not give Gregg any robust support for his anti-foundationalism,
and that Rancière’s politics of dissensus makes an uneasy ally for
Gregg’s constructivism. We argue that we need strong moral
foundations to motivate critique and ground valid construction,
and that they need not draw us back into the authoritarianism so
often associated with classical foundations on which human rights
claims have sometimes relied. We suggest that the right kind of
thin but strong moral foundations are most clearly articulated in
the work of the critical theorist Rainer Forst, and that Forst’s
constructivism and his emphasis on dissensus makes his
perspective particularly compatible with Gregg’s project. In the
final parts of the article, we expose what we see as the
unacknowledged normative foundations of Gregg’s position. We
conclude by briefly examining the practical significance of his
neglect of those foundations and the moral context that are
crucial for tackling the governance gap in business human rights
issues.
reconfiguration of corporate accountability for human rights. It also presents a threat: the danger, as we see it, is that the Guiding Principles are interpreted and implemented in an uncritical way, on a “humanitarian” model of imposed expertise. The critical and radical democratic communities have tended to be, perhaps rightly, suspicious of rights talk and skeptical of any suggestion that rights and the discourse of human rights can play a progressive role. The purpose of this paper is to explore these issues from a radical perspective. This paper uses insights taken from Jacques Rancière’s work to argue that there is vital critical potential in human rights. There is an obvious negativity to Rancière’s thought insofar as it conceives of the political as a challenge to the existing social order. The positive dimension to his work, which has its origins in his commitment to and tireless affirmation of the fact of equality, is equally important, if perhaps less obvious. Together the negative and positive moments provide a dynamic conception of human rights and a dialectical view of the relation between human rights and the social order, which enables us to overcome much of the criticism levelled at human rights by certain theorists. Rancière’s conception of the political puts human rights inscriptions, and the traces of equality they carry, at the heart of progressive politics. The authors close the paper with a discussion of the role that accounting for human rights can play in such a democratic politics, and by urging, on that basis, the critical accounting community to cautiously embrace the opportunity presented by the Guiding Principles
project outlined by Benjamin Gregg in The Human Rights State
(2016). In developing our analysis of Gregg’s project, we consider
it in the context of the inspiration it draws from the work of
Hannah Arendt and Jacques Rancière. We argue that Arendt does
not give Gregg any robust support for his anti-foundationalism,
and that Rancière’s politics of dissensus makes an uneasy ally for
Gregg’s constructivism. We argue that we need strong moral
foundations to motivate critique and ground valid construction,
and that they need not draw us back into the authoritarianism so
often associated with classical foundations on which human rights
claims have sometimes relied. We suggest that the right kind of
thin but strong moral foundations are most clearly articulated in
the work of the critical theorist Rainer Forst, and that Forst’s
constructivism and his emphasis on dissensus makes his
perspective particularly compatible with Gregg’s project. In the
final parts of the article, we expose what we see as the
unacknowledged normative foundations of Gregg’s position. We
conclude by briefly examining the practical significance of his
neglect of those foundations and the moral context that are
crucial for tackling the governance gap in business human rights
issues.
reconfiguration of corporate accountability for human rights. It also presents a threat: the danger, as we see it, is that the Guiding Principles are interpreted and implemented in an uncritical way, on a “humanitarian” model of imposed expertise. The critical and radical democratic communities have tended to be, perhaps rightly, suspicious of rights talk and skeptical of any suggestion that rights and the discourse of human rights can play a progressive role. The purpose of this paper is to explore these issues from a radical perspective. This paper uses insights taken from Jacques Rancière’s work to argue that there is vital critical potential in human rights. There is an obvious negativity to Rancière’s thought insofar as it conceives of the political as a challenge to the existing social order. The positive dimension to his work, which has its origins in his commitment to and tireless affirmation of the fact of equality, is equally important, if perhaps less obvious. Together the negative and positive moments provide a dynamic conception of human rights and a dialectical view of the relation between human rights and the social order, which enables us to overcome much of the criticism levelled at human rights by certain theorists. Rancière’s conception of the political puts human rights inscriptions, and the traces of equality they carry, at the heart of progressive politics. The authors close the paper with a discussion of the role that accounting for human rights can play in such a democratic politics, and by urging, on that basis, the critical accounting community to cautiously embrace the opportunity presented by the Guiding Principles