Organizations of many kinds are increasingly attempting to facilitate accountability processes. They may want to address harm, preserve trust, uphold shared values, or create communities where people can feel safe enough to participate fully. But once actual concerns arise, the work can quickly become more difficult than a group is prepared for.

Accountability processes can require leaders to make high-stakes decisions under conditions of partial information, emotional intensity, overlapping relationships, reputational risk, limited capacity, and competing expectations. Organizational staff are often asked to simultaneously act as policy makers, investigators, adjudicators, communicators, support people, and consequence administrators, usually without training, clear process guidance, or meaningful institutional support.

Participatory Accountability is a forthcoming book that examines why this work is so challenging, why many accountability systems fail, and how communities can build processes better suited to their actual capacities and responsibilities. It presents a model of accountability based on update instead of adjudication. Rather than asking organizations to act as investigators, judges, and moral authorities, Participatory Accountability invites them to create structured containers in which people can express concerns, encounter and respond to relevant accounts, develop understanding, and change behavior.

Selected excerpts and related writings will be shared below as the book develops.