ABSTRACT
This chapter undertakes a theoretical exploration of the power relations of responsibility by connecting the conceptual framework established in the previous chapter to prominent insights from contemporary social and political thought. A focus on the oft-made distinction between legal, moral, and political responsibility helps to demonstrate the significance of socially embedded practices of holding accountable. Concepts like obligation, accountability, and answerability can be understood to have their basis in the attitudes and inclinations of human beings to act in ways that make them into meaningful social phenomena. Drawing on insights from Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu, among others, the chapter suggests that responsibility is made ‘real’ or ‘effective’ when there is a configuration of dispositions amongst the relevant social actors. Viewing responsibility as something intersubjective challenges us to move beyond a simple distinction between prescriptive and descriptive responsibility-talk, and to instead examine the way in which responsibility-claims and other related arguments are performative not only of formal ‘regimes’ but also wider and more diffuse ‘fields’ of responsibility.
