Institutions fail to address intractable problems because responsibility becomes diffusely delegated.

Evidence

Diffusion of Responsibility in the Informational Commons Within institutions, diffusion of responsibility arises when individuals or groups decide an issue or task, while important, is not their problem or priority. The problem of diffusion of responsibility has long been recognized by social scientists who study cooperation within groups and organizations (e.g., Hackman, 2004; Latane & Darley, 1970; Olson, 1965). Its roots are motivational as well as cognitive. Avoiding responsibility for a problem or task can be especially tempting when that problem or task is perceived as enormously difficult or intractable. Within most institutions, there exist proverbial “hot potatoes” that no one wishes to handle. As the 9/11 Report documented, terrorism was one such hot potato being passed around Washington in the summer of 2001—it was perceived as so hot, in fact, that numerous groups and agencies were happy to toss it to others as quickly as possible. The report noted, for example, that “Congress had a distinct tendency to push questions of emerging national security threats off its own plate, leaving them for others to consider” (p. 107). The report went on to observe that Congress even “asked outside commissions to do the work that arguably was at the heart of its own oversight responsibilities” (p. 107). — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1976

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Responsibility arises only in undecidable space that calculable programs try to close — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental…, 633