Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Crisis-induced accountability
- Part II Crisis-induced policy change and learning
- 7 The 1975 Stockholm embassy seizure: crisis and the absence of reform
- 8 The Walkerton water tragedy and the Jerusalem banquet hall collapse: regulatory failure and policy change
- 9 Learning from crisis: NASA and the Challenger disaster
- 10 September 11 and postcrisis investigation: exploring the role and impact of the 9/11 Commission
- Conclusion
- Index
- References
10 - September 11 and postcrisis investigation: exploring the role and impact of the 9/11 Commission
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 June 2010
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Crisis-induced accountability
- Part II Crisis-induced policy change and learning
- 7 The 1975 Stockholm embassy seizure: crisis and the absence of reform
- 8 The Walkerton water tragedy and the Jerusalem banquet hall collapse: regulatory failure and policy change
- 9 Learning from crisis: NASA and the Challenger disaster
- 10 September 11 and postcrisis investigation: exploring the role and impact of the 9/11 Commission
- Conclusion
- Index
- References
Summary
Postcrisis politics and reform: the remarkable role of the 9/11 Commission
Launching an official investigation almost seems a Pavlovian response to crises in western democracies. Well-known examples include the Roberts Commission after Pearl Harbor (1941), the Warren Commission after the assassination of John F. Kennedy (1963), the Ervin Committee after Watergate (1972), the Widgery and Saville Inquiries after Bloody Sunday (1972), the Scarman Inquiry after the Brixton riots in London (1981), the Challenger and Columbia commissions (1986/2003), the Dutch NIOD Inquiry after the fall of the Bosnian Muslim enclave of Srebrenica (1995), the Dutroux inquiry (Staelraeve and 't Hart, this volume), the Swiss Independent Expert Commission on the role of Swiss banks during World War II (1996) and the Spanish Parliamentary Inquiry after the terrorist attacks in Madrid (2004).
Whereas the establishment of postcrisis inquiries is a recurring pattern, their political impact varies significantly. Some commission reports set off substantive policy changes; others end up in the dustbin. In fact, when it comes to enacting meaningful reform, the latter outcome (the dustbin) appears to be the norm. Postcrisis commissions rarely result in dramatic change or substantial reform (March and Olsen 1983; Olsen and Peters 1996; Zegart 2005). The persistence of formal postcrisis inquiries, despite a seeming record of desultory results, raises two key questions: what motivates such efforts and why do some commissions have a major impact on policies, while others pass into oblivion?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Governing after CrisisThe Politics of Investigation, Accountability and Learning, pp. 255 - 282Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008
References
9/11 Commission (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States 2004). The 9/11 Commission Report. New York: Norton.
, and 2001. Institutional crises and reforms in policy sectors: the case of asylum policy in Europe. Journal of European Public Policy 8(2):286–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1971. Essence of decision: explaining the Cuban missile crisis. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
, and 1999. Essence of decision: explaining the Cuban missile crisis, 2nd edn. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
, and 1996. Organizational learning II: theory, method, and practice. Reading, PA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
1990. Reckoning schemes of legitimation: on commissions of inquiry as power/knowledge forms. Journal of Historical Sociology 3(1):1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2004. Proposals for intelligence reorganization, 1949–2004. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service (CRS Report RL 32500).Google Scholar
Betts, R. K. 2001. Intelligence test: the limits of prevention. In How did this happen? Terrorism and the new war. and (eds.). New York: Public Affairs, pp. 145–61.Google Scholar
Boin, A., and 't Hart, P. 2000. Institutional crises and reforms in policy sectors. In Government institutions: effects, changes and normative foundations. Boston: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , and 2005. The politics of crisis management: public leadership under pressure. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bracken, P. 2001. Rethinking the unthinkable: new priorities for new national security. In and (eds.) The age of terror: America and the world after September 11. New York: Basic Books, pp. 171–91.Google Scholar
, and 1979. Official discourse: on discourse analysis, government publications, ideology and the state. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
, and 1965. Organizational learning: observations toward a theory. Administrative Science Quarterly 10(2):175–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and 1937. Royal commissions of inquiry: the significance of investigations in British politics. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
, . and 1972. A garbage can model of organization choice. Administrative Science Quarterly 17(1):1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and 1999. An organizational learning framework: from intuition to institution. Academy of Management Review 24(3):522–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and 1984. Towards a model of organizations as interpretation systems. Academy of Management Review 9:284–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1988. Philosophical critiques of policy analysis: Lindblom, Habermas, and the great society. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press.Google Scholar
, and 2002. Public inquiry: panacea or placebo. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 10(1):14–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2005. Sins of commission? Falkenrath and his critics: the author replies. International Security 29 (4):209–11.Google Scholar
, and 1985. Organizational learning. Academy of Management Review 10(4):803–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1993. Symbols, rituals and power: the lost dimension of crisis management. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 1(1):36–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1994. Groupthink in government: a study of small groups and government failure. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
1991. Organizational learning: the contributing processes and the literatures. Organization Science 2(1):88–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1982. Groupthink: psychological studies of policy decisions and fiascoes, 2nd edn. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.Google Scholar
1988. Surprise attack: the victim's perspective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and 2006. Without precedent: the inside story of the 9/11 Commission. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
, and 1979. Usable knowledge: social science and social problem solving. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
, and 1977. Commission politics: the processing of racial crisis in America. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.Google Scholar
, and 1983. Organizing political life: what administrative reorganization tells us about government. The American Political Science Review 77(2):281–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and 2005. Sins of commission? Falkenrath and his critics. International Security 29(4):208–09.Google Scholar
2005, When government writes history: a memoir of the 9/11 commission. The New Republic (May) 30–5.Google Scholar
, and (eds.) 1996. Lessons from experience: experiential learning in administrative reforms in eight democracies. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press.Google Scholar
, and 2002. Blindsided? September 11 and the origins of strategic surprise. Political Psychology 23(3):601–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and 2005. Bolt from the blue or avoidable failure? Revisiting September 11 and the origins of strategic surprise. Foreign Policy Analysis 1(3):301–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2005. Organizational or executive failures. Contemporary Sociology 34(2):99–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Platt, A. 1971. The politics of riot commissions, 1917–1970: an overview. In (ed.) The politics of riot commissions, 1917–1970: a collection of official reports and critical essays. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
2005. Preventing surprise attacks: intelligence reform in the wake of 9/11. Lanham, UK: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
1980. Politics, position and power: the dynamics of federal organization, 3rd edn. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
1983. State theory, social science, and governmental commissions. American Behavioral Scientist 26(5):669–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and (eds.) 1998. Whither the study of governmental politics in foreign policymaking: a symposium. Mershon International Studies Review 42:205–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stone, B. 1994. Success in public inquiries: an analysis and a case study. In (ed.) Royal commissions and the making of public policy. Melbourne: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Whitney, C. R. 2004. Introduction. In (ed.) The 9/11 investigations. New York: Public Affairs.Google Scholar
1984. Speaking truth to power: the art and craft of policy analysis. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.Google Scholar
2005. September 11 and the adaptation failure of the U.S. intelligence agencies. International Security 29(4):78–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- 21
- Cited by