ABSTRACT
The introductory chapter of this volume began with an observation: In listening to the rhetoric surrounding discussions of government in its various forms, one soon becomes aware of a collective obsession with accountability. The contributions to the Kettering Symposium represent just a small part of the greater effort among students of governance to explore the subject of that obsession. Yet reflecting on the work presented in this volume and elsewhere, we note that one central aspect of that opening observation has been left unexplored: the obsession itself.
