‘A new and compelling argument for why so many institutions continue to be spellbound by rankings and metrics – despite the cultural carnage they cause. How can we halt this “death by audit”? The authors develop a radical agenda that will strike fear into number-loving technocrats around the world’ Peter Fleming, author of Dark Academia: How Universities Die
‘A powerful and definitive critical diagnosis of the effects of audit culture on individuals, organisations and society. Essential reading’ Michael Power, Professor, LSE
‘A visionary book’ Marilyn Strathern, Emeritus Professor, University of Cambridge
All aspects of our work and private lives are increasingly measured and managed. But how has this ‘audit culture’ arisen and what kind of a world is it producing? Cris Shore and Susan Wright provide a timely account of the rise of the new industries of accounting, enumeration and ranking from an anthropological perspective. Audit Culture is the first book to systematically document and analyse these phenomena and their implications for democracy.
The book explores how audit culture operates across a wide range of fields, including health, higher education, NGOs, finance, the automobile industry and the military. The authors build a powerful critique of contemporary public sector management in an age of neoliberal market-making, privatisation and outsourcing. They conclude by offering ideas about how to reverse its damaging effects on communities, and restore the democratic accountability that audit culture is systematically undermining.
Cris Shore is Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Central European University. One of his recent publications is The Shapeshifting Crown. Susan Wright is Professor of Educational Anthropology at Aarhus University, Denmark. One of her recent books is Enacting the University. Together they are co-editors of the Stanford Anthropology of Policy book series.
Table of Content
List of Figures
Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
Preface
1. Introduction: Audit Culture and the New World (Dis)Order
2. Rankings as Populist Project: Governing by Numbers and Hollowing out Democracy
3. The Big Four accountancy firms and the evolution of contemporary capitalism
4. Global Governance Through Standards, Seduction and Soft Power
5. Metrics, Managerialism and Market Making in Healthcare
6. Reforming Higher Education: The Kafkaesque Pursuit of ‘World Class’ Status
7. Performance management and the audited self
8. Conclusion: Repurposing Audit – Restoring Trust, Accountability and Democracy
About the author
Susan Wright is Professor of Educational Anthropology at Aarhus University, Denmark. Her latest publication is Enacting the University. With Cris Shore, she is the co-editor of the Anthropology of Policy book series for Stanford University Press and Death of the Public University?.
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