Responsibilization: The case of road safety governance

Hysing, Erik · 2019 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1111/rego.12288

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Summary

This paper analyzes the concept of "responsibilization" within the context of Swedish road safety governance, specifically focusing on the implementation of the Vision Zero (VZ) policy. The research addresses how responsibility for road safety has been attributed to various actors, the rationales behind these attributions, and the techniques used by state authorities to enforce them. The study is motivated by the broader shift in governance from traditional command-and-control regulation to new modes where nonstate actors are persuaded to voluntarily assume responsibility for societal problems. The study employs a qualitative research design, utilizing policy documents (government bills, inquiry reports, and evaluations) and 18 semi-structured interviews conducted in 2018 with representatives from organizations, companies, and authorities involved in the VZ policy. The author develops a three-dimensional analytical framework for responsibilization, examining actors (who attributes responsibility to whom), rationales (why responsibility is attributed, including causal, moral, and preventive grounds), and techniques (how responsibility is attributed, such as through soft or hard governance measures). The findings reveal a significant shift in the attribution of responsibility from individual road users to a broad set of "system designers," including road administrators, vehicle manufacturers, and transport service providers. This shift is driven by moral, causal, and preventive rationales, viewing accidents as predictable and preventable public health issues rather than isolated incidents of bad driving. However, in practice, the burden of responsibility has largely gravitated toward the Swedish Transport Administration (STA). The paper highlights that responsibilization occurs both within the state apparatus and is imposed on nonstate actors through soft governance measures. Internally, the implementation faced resistance and skepticism within state agencies, leading to a diffusion of responsibility and a reduction in dedicated road safety personnel following institutional reforms. The lack of legally codified responsibilities for system designers, despite moral imperatives, has resulted in a reliance on voluntary self-regulation and the "shadow of hierarchy" rather than strict legal accountability. The significance of this study lies in its contribution to governance theory by demonstrating how responsibilization functions as a praxis of governance that can lead to both the attribution and deresponsibilization of actors. It reveals the normative and ethical underpinnings of new governance modes and helps open the "black box" of the state by exposing internal struggles and the complex dynamics of responsibility attribution. The paper concludes that while the VZ policy rhetorically promotes shared responsibility, the practical implementation has been uneven, with state authorities playing a dominant role in defining and managing safety responsibilities, often at the expense of broader stakeholder engagement.

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• traffic safety culture