دانش پلیسی با استناد به قانون: حسابداری بحرانی و سیاست های انتشار

The unconstrained production and dissemination of knowledge in the form of alternative interpretations, analyses, commentaries, reports, theories and concepts is considered to be an essential characteristic of liberal democracies. Yet, all knowledge is policed in a variety of subtle ways ranging from self-censorship, the “gatekeeping" role of journal editors/reviewers, ideological leanings of journals/newspapers, sponsorship of research and the career aspirations of scholars. This paper examines the threat of (libel) lawsuits to discipline or inhibit scholarly accounting research and its dissemination. Evidence is provided from three case studies in which the authors sought to disseminate alternative research and analysis. It addresses the processes of negotiating the dissemination of our research with legal professionals and coming to terms with an increasing awareness of how legal processes can be invoked to silence or curtail our interventions.

The production and dissemination of knowledge in the form of alternative interpretations, analysis, commentaries, reports, concepts and theories is considered to be a major characteristic of liberal democracies.1 Yet, an established body of literature shows how governments, professional bodies, and major organisations are actively engaged in policing knowledge (for example, see Chomsky, 1989; Herman & Chomsky, 1994; Crossen, 1996; Said, 1994; Thompson, 1963, 1990). Knowledge and power are intertwined, each being a medium and outcome of the other. Instead of striving to cleanse knowledge of power, it is more coherent to foster an awareness of how forms of power, including legal processes, constrain as well as enable the dissemination of knowledge.

When describing and commenting upon the episodes, we are necessarily presenting our particular perspective or “gloss” upon events. We have sought to provide as full and scrupulous account of events as we can within the space available. That said, it would be perverse of us to claim that our version and interpretation of events is unselective or uncoloured by the experience of being involved in the events that we report. Our objective has not been to provide a definitive account of the episodes but, rather, to reflect upon them as a way of illuminating the role of the state, in the form of the law, in policing knowledge of elements of the UK accountancy establishment. Each episode required us either to negotiate our publications within a legal framework, or with an awareness that defenders of the status quo would not hesitate to mobilise legal threats to intimidate, harass and discipline us. In each case, we could be seen as engaged in “ruffling some feathers or rousing some rabble” (Moore, 1991, p. 784). In the money laundering case, our anxieties about the sensitivity of a paper that explored the connection of accountancy firms and money laundering initially led us to seek legal advice as a form of protection against possible libel actions that might be directed at ourselves or at our employers in a bid to suppress the contents of our paper. Although we had endeavoured to be exceptionally diligent in presenting evidence and in our choice of words, we recognised that we lacked an understanding of how our words could be represented in a court of law. It was our sense of exposure to the possibility of a libel action that led us to seek legal opinion. We assumed that subsequent requests for counsel’s opinion from Elsevier were motivated by similar anxieties. In the second episode, an article submitted to Political Quarterly discussed the role of Jersey’s public relations consultants in wooing senior UK government officials. Mindful of the reputation of the Jersey government and its advisers for using threats of legal action to silence critics, the editor obtained a legal opinion on the paper. On that occasion, it proved possible to respond to the legal advice by providing further evidence and by altering the style of our writing rather than by deleting substantive content. In the final episode, a threat of legal proceedings was received following publication of an article in Accountancy Age that had made allegations about a former President of the ACCA. An agreed statement withdrawing the allegation was repeatedly sought, together with an undertaking not to repeat it or any similar defamatory statement. Despite the refusal to give any such undertaking, no legal proceedings were undertaken.