Statistical Accounting and Legitimacy

James Fowler ()
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James Fowler: University of Essex

Chapter Chapter 2 in Hustlers, Traitors, Patriots and Politicians, 2023, pp 29-50 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract This chapter explores the two key analytical frameworks that underpin the remainder of the book. We begin with legitimacy, a commonly used term, but through Mark Suchman’s paper we can pick apart the precise dimensions of this key condition in the establishment of monopolies. Through breaking down the historical evidence into the procedural, pragmatic and moral spheres of legitimacy, we can make sense of the huge volume of evidence from the media and politics of the period and carefully re-construct the themes that allowed the ‘grands projets’ of a unified London Transport organisation to very gradually take shape. In this period, the part played by statistical accounting in that process was very great indeed, and therefore has been allocated a subsidiary section of its own. Detailed statistical record keeping was still a relatively novel concept in the very early twentieth century, and there were high expectations of its ability to transform the efficiency of organisations. This chapters notes that development, but suggests that its primary role was to buttress and wider sense of legitimacy that stemmed out of ‘objective’ management.

Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palscp:978-3-031-39296-2_2

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-39296-2_2

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