How We Can Fix Broken Institutions

An excerpt from ‘Unaccountable’

From the outset, we must recognize that there is no going back to that seemingly safer, more predictable place — that place before the end of the Cold War and the advent of the digital age — where how things might unfold was more linear and the rules were more firmly entrenched. Today’s corruption, and the unaccountability that is its signature feature, have taken hold. What can be done in the shadow elite era, the age of structured unaccountability of so many of our formal institutions, and of power brokers who “fail up”?

In surpassing the old means of wielding influence — be they interest groups, registered lobbyists, bribery, or other means — today’s premier power brokers have also surpassed the old ways of holding them to account. What can be done when the old remedies, ranging from government auditing to public shaming, no longer work nearly as well as they once did?

Oddly, an episode in my life on a Sunday in the spring of 2013 may go part way to answering this question. I was standing in the front of a “security” line at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., in advance of a flight to Florida for a conference. There I was, waiting and waiting for the “pat-down” by a Transportation Security Administration officer, and still waiting. . . . Other passengers were sending their luggage through the machine and passing through the body scanner in short order. But there I stood, holding out for a “female assist.” And waiting. . . .

I usually declined to go through the full-body scanner, not trusting that it was entirely safe, and all too aware that at least some were sold to the public and to the U.S. government in ways that defied some of the standards of accountability.

“I burst forth with the first verse of “The Star Spangled Banner” at the top of my lungs. In full voice, and mustering up full stage presence like an opera singer, I gave it my all.”

I had notified an officer, even before I got close to the front of the line, that I would opt for the pat-down, and he promised to find me a female assist. In navigating security, I had learned to be exceedingly polite — and patient. Now, at the front of the line, I inquired respectfully about every five minutes, and was told that I had to wait.

Meanwhile, my flight departure time was approaching, other fliers were being processed through security, and I wanted to at least be able to grab a cup of coffee before boarding.

My polite entreaties obviously were not working.

Inwardly growing perturbed, but outwardly sporting a big smile, I burst forth with the first verse of “The Star Spangled Banner” at the top of my lungs. In full voice, and mustering up full stage presence like an opera singer, I gave it my all. The idea had just come to me that a headline “TSA Arrests Woman for Singing National Anthem” could be a little embarrassing for the powers that be. After all, singing “The Star Spangled Banner” could certainly be seen as a patriotic display, even as an endorsement of U.S. airport security procedures and the idea that they keep America safe.

What happened next? At first, all the officers looked around confusedly, trying to figure out where the singing was coming from. A loudspeaker, perhaps?

Then they spotted me, smiling and singing at full throttle well into the first verse. I was just about up to the “land of the free and home of the brave.”

How long do you think it took them to find that elusive female assist?

I had barely finished the first verse before a TSA officer waved me through to my handler, who patted me down and sent me on my merry way. I got my coffee and made my flight.

“The spectacle I had created demanded a human reaction — the same human reaction that has been lost in our age of structured unaccountability — replete with digitization of almost everything, silos, and a broken connection between bureaucrat and client, policymaker and voter.”

Later I realized how proud I was of my success — of having beaten the system. It was like the pride I (and routinely many others) felt when they successfully maneuvered the challenges of everyday life in communist Eastern Europe in, say, getting that scarce item in a store through a relationship with the clerk. Pride is the antidote to succumbing to the humiliation that the system offers up.

What does this story tell us?

If I had screamed and yelled and expressed outrage, asked to see the big boss, threatened to file a complaint, or worse, the TSA would have known exactly how to react. They have procedures for that — well-honed methods for dealing with unruly behavior and disgruntled complainers. No doubt it is codified in their manuals and is a substantial part of their training.

My strategy worked precisely because my behavior was so far removed from the standard playbook that the officers were at a complete loss. She is attracting puzzling attention, and it is awkward, I can imagine them thinking. How to deal with someone who is respectfully, yet unexpectedly, singing the U.S.A.’s national anthem? We must get her to stop. How to do that? Find that female assist, pronto. Apparently, that was not a problem.

My (singing) strategy worked because it was out of place and didn’t even come close to fitting into the confines of what the staff knew how to deal with. It worked because it diverged from the standard impersonal, formal way of operating. My behaving well outside the norm required the system’s functionaries, too, to step outside their prescribed roles and find a unique way of reacting. The spectacle I had created demanded a human reaction — the same human reaction that has been lost in our age of structured unaccountability — replete with digitization of almost everything, silos, and a broken connection between bureaucrat and client, policymaker and voter.

The same connection that is lost in, say, the customer-service phone tree or the world of sliced-and-diced mortgages and exotic derivatives.

The old ways are no longer so effective, but such strategies as the one I resorted to in the airport can be.

My own small effort to get through an airport pales in comparison to the norm-busting strategies employed in cases much more consequential. Take, for instance, the so-called Yes Men whose slogan is “Sometimes it takes a lie to expose the truth.” They sought compensation for the thousands of victims killed and sickened by the 1984 Union Carbide chemical spill in Bhopal, India (a still-contaminated site), for which the company had disbursed only $470 million. Posing as a spokesman for Dow Chemical (which had acquired Union Carbide) in an interview with the BBC on the twentieth anniversary of the disaster, a member of this enterprising duo said that Dow would assume full responsibility for the accident and pay $12 billion to the victims. That hoax news required a response from the company. While an embarrassed Dow denied that it would do anything, the spectacle “prompted the world media to put the debate over corporate responsibility in the news,” as the Washington Post observed.

“Just as I broke the unwritten rules of how to behave in the airport security line (and just as there was no script for dealing with my behavior), so do practitioners of the today’s corruption operate beyond the bounds of legal violation.”

Consider, too, the impact of fake news programs such as Stewart’s The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. In the 2012 election cycle, and in the wake of the 2010 Supreme Court Citizens United ruling, Stephen Colbert’s Super PAC, “Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow,” brought huge public attention to the unaccountability and lack of transparency of these political-influence groups.

Such hoaxing and posing “does not fit a common understanding of resistance or opposition,” say anthropologists Dominic Boyer and Alexei Yurchak, who, like me, observed a similarity between the public propaganda of late-communist societies and the mainstream media of today in the West. That is precisely why it works so well.

A successful norm-busting strategy draws public or media attention to an issue through a performance that is unconventional yet inoffensive, as well as puzzling, humorous, or dazzling. Ironically, it is imbued with qualities of shadow elites. The ambiguity surrounding the activity of hoaxers and posers and their agility in shifting roles and playing with the rules resembles that of shadow elites. In both cases, these qualities render the players effective — and unaccountable. Moreover, such strategy plays on the very performance culture that motivates regular people to turn to parody in search of something more authentic — and in the process, of course, is itself a performance. It must attract unusual attention and demand a response from its target and the public.

Still, however entertaining and successful such strategies may be, they are piecemeal, ad hoc, unsystematic, and thus severely limited in potential impact.

While not ethically challenged, these strategies, like those of the practitioners of the new corruption, also “innovate” beyond the bounds of law. Just as I broke the unwritten rules of how to behave in the airport security line (and just as there was no script for dealing with my behavior), so do practitioners of the today’s corruption operate beyond the bounds of legal violation.

And, let’s not forget, while posing and hoaxes are public displays, they are private responses to broken public institutions. They cannot restore public accountability or trust. They are a workaround that highlights what is missing in society.

Excerpted from Unaccountable published by Pegasus. Copyright © Janine Wedel 2014.

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