2,497 research outputs found
Accounting and the Diffusion of Sacred Values in the Diocese of Ferrara (1431-1457)
No full textInformed by the work of Laughlin and Booth, the chapter analyzes the role of accounting and accountability practices within the 15th century Roman Catholic Church. Secular accounting and accountability practices were not regarded as necessarily antithetical to religious values, as would be expected by Laughlin and Booth. Instead, they were seen to assume a role which was complementary to the Church’s religious mission. Indeed, they were essential to its sacred mission during a period in which the Pope sought to arrest the moral decay of the clergy and reinstate the Church’s authority
Accounting and the dehumanisation of the Jewish ‘Other’
No full textThis chapter provides an introduction to the pivotal role of accounting as a practice to expedite the attempted annihilation of Jews by the German Nazis and the Italian Fascists. Accounting practices provided the means to help deny Jews of their humanity and individuality by reducing them to mere numbers, making them effectively invisible as prescient human beings. Accounting practices used especially by the German civil and military bureaucracies also provided a means for those indirectly involved in mass murder to later claim innocence and ignorance of the consequences of their actions. Thus, accounting was to have both fatal, genocidal and moral purposes in the service of those who orchestrated and carried out the Holocaust
Accounting and the Restoration of Pastoral Power in the 15th-century Roman Catholic Church
No full textInformed by the work of Foucault on pastoral power the chapter examines the genealogical core of governmentality in the context of the Roman Catholic Church at a time of great crisis in the 15th century. The contributions of accounting to pastoral power have been pivotal in restoring the Church’s standing and influence. Accounting was one of the technologies that allowed the bishops to control both the diocese as a whole and each priest, to subjugate the priests to the bishops’ authority and, thereby, to govern the diocese through a never-ending extraction of truth
The Imperative of Power: Accounting in Diverse Settings
No full textThe chapter recognizes the significant contributions of Italian, Spanish and Portuguese researches in studying accounting as a socially constructed practice. In particular, it explores how Italian and Iberian scholars have contributed to unmasking the seemingly benign appearance of accounting practices which makes them invaluable as a tool in the exercise of power for institutions as diverse as the Church and the State and the Empires. It also provides an overview of the chapters included in the book
Popular culture and totalitarianism: Accounting for propaganda in Italy under the Fascist regime (1934-1945)
No full textThroughout history, both democratic and totalitarian States have sought to take advantage of the possible political contributions of art and culture. This chapter presents the first in-depth historical study of the relationship between accounting and culture in a totalitarian State; the Fascist State in Italy between 1934 and 1945. Accounting documents in the form of budgets and reports provided by the Fascist government, along with other accounts prepared by the Fascists, were used to build a narrative that identified the ways in which the Fascist regime sought to rally the Italian people around new values such as nationalism and hatred for the “Other”, which led to the persecution of Jews. Accounting documents and the cultural activities to which they relate show the ways in which the Fascists developed their own conception of popular culture and sought control of cultural organisations and intellectuals in spreading their values and beliefs through cultural artefacts
Accounting for the Fossoli concentration camp
No full textItalian Jews were collected by the Fascists at the Fossoli concentration camp in northern Italy and later transported by the Germans to their extermination camps. This required the suspension of the normal Italian legal protections that Agamben has recognised as the creation of a state of exception that allowed Jews to be denied the rights that gave their life value, thereby reducing them to “bare life” that could be destroyed without consequence for the killer. Accounting practices used in the management of the Fossoli concentration camp allowed Italian Jews in the camp to become known only with measurable attributes, not individuals with a right to life. Jewish prisoners sent to the extermination camps to be killed became mere numbers, data to be processed. Consequently, accounting practices became fundamental to the Nazis’ biopolitical regime that would become part of the attempted annihilation of Italian Jews
‘Accounting for the Music’. Institutional logics in the Regio Teatro Carolino of Palermo at the beginning of the nineteenth century
No full textWe analyse the foundation and organisation of the Regio Teatro Carolino (RTC) in Palermo in the mid-eighteenth century, and its development at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In particular, we examine the accounting system to determine how it was influenced by competing and often conflicting institutional logics. The RTC originated from a private initiative of the Palermo nobility, but soon had to resort to public funding to maintain its artistic performances. Following this process, the Bourbon monarchy implemented control over the RTC and more generally, over all theatrical activities. The research emphasises the different institutional logics that shaped the RTC's management system, highlighting the hybrid characteristics of this institution
Accounting and the Management of Power: Napoleon's Occupation of the Commune of Ferrara
No full textThis study, which is informed by Foucault’s concept of governmentality, identifies the systematic ties between political discourse, forms of rationality and technologies of government during the first period that Napoleon governed Ferrara in northern Italy (1796–99). The study identifies a decoupling between ‘political discourses, rhetoric and language’ and the use of ‘technologies of government’. The results enhance understanding of the translation of politics and power into a set of administrative tasks and calculative practices to secure power in modern public sector settings today. In the neo-liberal prescriptions for the modern State which demand a much diminished role and presence for the government in the lives of its citizens, societies, organizations and their management are tending to be more and more concerned with surveillance made operable through power
Accounting and Psychiatric Power in Italy: The Royal Insane Hospital of Turin in the 19th Century
No full textThis paper identifies the importance of accounting practices in the successful operation of the Royal Insane Hospital of Turin, prior to the Italian unification, to show the importance of the lunatic asylum to our understanding of the way in which power is sustained by the State and the dependence of this process on the information and discourses created by accounting practices. The study is informed by insights from Michel Foucault's work on lunatic asylums and psychiatric power. Accounting practices of the Royal Insane Hospital of Turin allowed the State as a major contributor to the funding of the asylum to control and monitor the cost of providing the necessary facilities and care for patients. Accounting allowed the hospital to be managed more efficiently which, most importantly, allowed the hospital to provide the support and facilities which were essential for creating the environment required for new medical practices in the treatment of the mentally unwell at a time when the role of doctors was becoming increasingly important. Accounting is also shown to have played a prominent role in supporting the political and social legitimation of the institution and its claim for public and private support. Critical to this process was the social and political importance of the statistics produced by the doctors of the lunatic asylum
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