Democratizing accounting: Reflections on the politics of “old” and “new” pluralisms

Over the last 25 years, Critical Perspectives on Accounting has been at the forefront of stimulating debate about the meaning, location and scope of politics. This paper reflects on long-standing disagreements in critical and social accounting over the progressive potential of political pluralism. It examines commonalities and differences across three generations of pluralist thinkers: early twentieth-century political theorists, post-World War 2 and neo-pluralist political scientists, and post-structural pluralists. With respect to social accounting, I argue that as in other disciplinary fields post-war liberal pluralism has often been mistakenly viewed “as the whole of political pluralism” (Schlosberg, 1998, p. 583) and that while early second generation pluralism was rightly criticized for providing ideological support for the status quo, critics exaggerated the conservatism of neo-pluralism. Nonetheless, second generation pluralism provides a limited view of democratic politics. I examine the resurgence of interest in political pluralism among contemporary political theorists, highlighting how agonistic democratic theorists have addressed aspects of political quietism in “old” pluralisms and in some strands of post-structuralism. Providing examples from several politically pressing areas, I argue that theorizing, critique and engagement informed by third generation understandings of social plurality and political struggle offer a promising base for critical accounting interventions.