Risk, “blame games” and government

The talk, entitled “Risk and Government: The architectonics of blame-avoidance” is being given by Professor Christopher Hood, Gladstone Professor of Government at Oxford University.

Against the context of the current inquiry into the Iraq war, Professor Hood will show how the risk of blame shapes the way that many public office-holders spend their time, as well as going to the heart of the operating routines and structures of government.

While this may sound worrying for the average citizen, he will also argue that there is a distinction to be drawn between different types of blame avoidance. In some cases, the blame game can be a useful force in public service delivery, and Professor Hood will suggest that it is only “the wrong sort of blame-avoidance” that we should be trying to discourage.

The free, public lecture will be held at 5.30pm on Friday, 5th February, at the Lady Mitchell Hall on the University’s Sidgwick site. As usual, people are advised to arrive as early as they can to guarantee themselves a place in the theatre, as the lecture series is proving even more popular than in previous years and demand is very high.

Professor Hood specialises in the study of government, regulation and public-sector reform. He has taught and researched in the areas of government and politics, on three continents, and has written or edited more than twenty books.

His publications include The Limits of Administration (1976), The Tools of Government (1983) and The Art of the State (1998 and 2000) for which he was awarded the Political Studies Association’s WJM Mackenzie Book Prize in 2000.

Director of the Economic and Social Research Council Public Services Research Programme, Professor Hood is also a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, and chairs the Working Party on Personalised Medicine.

Before moving to Oxford in 2001 he held chairs at the London School of Economics and the University of Sydney, he has also worked at the Universities of Glasgow, York, Bielefeld, the National University of Singapore and the City University of Hong Kong.

The annual Darwin College Lecture Series has been running since 1986. Over the years a remarkable list of leading academics and public figures, from a wide range of fields have spoken to the public on an equally diverse set of themes (like Survival, Confict, DNA and Memory). These themes change from year to year and each lecture is given by someone from a different academic discipline, making for a diverse, accessible and popular lecture series.

This year’s theme is risk and the series has thus far seen presentations from Professor David Spiegelhalter on quantifying uncertainty, Dr. Ben Goldacre on risk in science and the media, and Professor John O’Doherty on risk and the brain.

For more information and the full programme please see: www.dar.cam.ac.uk/lectures/index.shtml