Ritualized public apology lets top officials evade real accountability

Evidence

Egregious systemic transgressions fostered surreptitiously from above make it hard to believe that the upper echelon is entirely blameless. In a common scenario, top officials evade accountability by stepping forward with a ritualized public apology. They announce that they accept ultimate responsibility because the transgressions occurred “under their watch.” — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 438

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to how governments/political classes admit ‘systemic failures’ while shielding officials, echoing the vault’s theme of rationalized harmful policy.
• SEED: The ‘under my watch’ apology as a designed accountability-avoidance ritual could anchor an essay on how institutional apologies function as cover.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 438