This article challenges the narrow confines of traditional accountability by introducing thanatoaccountability as a theoretical framework. Through an analysis of the German company Degussa during the Holocaust, we uncover how accounting metrics and accountability mechanisms actively obscured and normalised corporate participation in genocide. Drawing on archival analysis, we show how accounting and accountability mechanisms were repurposed to identify, exclude and ultimately erase Jewish life - first from markets, then from the political sphere and finally from existence itself. Degussa's progression from initial resistance to active complicity reveals how routine business practices, cloaked in bureaucratic neutrality, normalised genocide, even when financial gains were minimal. Thanatoaccountability not only exposes the inadequacy of conventional legal and financial accountability in capturing these processes but also offers crucial analytical tools for understanding how modern corporations normalise systematic death, highlighting how accounting practices can be weaponised to facilitate death while simultaneously shielding corporations from accountability for those death(s).

Intervention in Africa by the Italian Fascists was not justified only by economic motives but sought to re-engineer the Indigenous population and settlers in the creation of a new society shaped by Fascist ideology. Accounting tools in the form of budgets, censuses and reports from the colonies of Eritrea, Ethiopia, Libya and Somalia between 1922 and 1941 were essential means to gather information which would inform policies that would control the way in which both the Indigenous population and Italian settlers conducted themselves. Ultimately this was meant to change their motives and actions to create the conditions that would lead to significant political and economic gains for the colonising power. Informed by the work of Arendt and Foucault on biopolitics and totalitarianism, this study investigates the way in which Fascist accounting in the colonies, rather than being solely a means to promote the efficient expropriation of local resources, was to be used to build a new generation of strong, ruthless Italians and develop a highly racialised society. In unseen ways the biopolitical properties of accounting can allow interventions in the lives of individuals which can modify an individual’s lifestyle and priorities and even promote discrimination and racism that enable control.

Throughout history both democratic and totalitarian States have sought to take advantage of the possible political contributions of art and culture. This study presents the first in-depth historical study of the relationship between accounting and culture in a totalitarian State; the Fascist State in Italy between 1934 and 1945. Accounting documents in the form of budgets and reports provided by the Fascist government, along with other accounts prepared by the Fascists, were used to build a narrative that identified the ways in which the Fascist regime sought to win the committed allegiance of the Italian people in unseen ways. Accounting documents and the cultural activities to which they relate show the ways in which the Fascists developed their own conception of popular culture and sought control of cultural organisations and intellectuals in spreading their values and beliefs through cultural artefacts. The study documents the importance of accounting records as a less obvious, often underscored source for social history. It also adds to the growing literature that has explored the place of accounting in totalitarian regimes by focusing on the unexplored context of Fascist popular culture and identifying the contributions of accounting to the management of propaganda activities.

PurposeThis study examines how accounting practices used by Deutsche Bank could conceal its role in the destruction of Jewish financial life (bios) as part of the Nazis' Aryanisation policy to eliminate Jews from German business as a prelude to their annihilation.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a close-reading method that draws upon a wide range of primary and secondary sources. The study is informed by Giorgio Agamben's theorisations on the state of exception and the duality of the example and exception.FindingsThe successful implementation of the Nazis' corporative economic model necessitated the cooperation of Aryan businesses to instrumentalise the financially exploitative process of Aryanisation. Accounting was part of the Nazi-Deutsch rhetoric used to disguise expropriation of Jewish businesses and other assets and, thereby, facilitate the eradication of the financial bios of Jews who owned German banks. Unknown to the Nazi authorities, Deutsche Bank, while a significant medium for Aryanisation, sought to ameliorate the long-term effects on Jewish owners, thereby recognising that not all those within Nazi Germany were fully committed disciples of Nazism.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of this study identify how accounting practices were part of a Nazi policy designed to eliminate Jews from the German economy. The use of accounting as a form of “Nazi-Deutsch” functioned to disguise Aryanisations. The importance of these contributions of accounting practices calls for further research into the role of business and accounting in the attempted eradication of people.Originality/valueThe paper is the first to consider the process of Aryanisation in Nazi Germany (1933–1945) as a specific historiographical subject. Presented through the examination of the Aryanisation actions of Deutsche Bank, this study demonstrates the tension between Nazi ideology, the capitalist model and the culpability of accounting practices as a means to reinterpret morality to create the exception that allowed the Nazis to effectively remove all legal protections for Jews.

This chapter shows how the Nazis drew upon the work and reputation of the German economic historian Werner Sombart to help justify their persecution of Jews. It confirms how totalitarian States such as Nazi Germany seek to take advantage of cultural artefacts and individuals revered by society to engender support with the contributory legitimacy this accorded to anti-Semitic propaganda. Sombart was particularly known for his studies of double entry bookkeeping and its importance for the rise of modern capitalism. However, the chapter shows how his anti-Semitic beliefs shaped his appreciation of double entry bookkeeping. He condemned Jews because, in his mind, they personified the avaricious, selfish spirit of capitalism. He accused Jews of being exceptional exponents of rational profit calculation and, thereby, of perpetrating the evils of capitalism that the Nazis denounced.

The chapter investigates the contributions of accounting to biopolitics, the exercise of power over life. Drawing upon Foucault's ideas on biopower, Agamben's understanding of the functioning of biopolitics has risen to particular prominence. Unlike Foucault, Agamben does not merely see the ultimate goal of biopower as that of producing life, but stresses its negative consequences by mobilizing his concepts of state of exception and bare life. The ways in which biopower is used to create states of exception and reduce human beings to bare life and the related contributions of accounting technologies will be illustrated by means of two Italian examples. The management of the Fossoli concentration camp under the Fascist regime and the recent intervention by the Italian government in the COVID-19 pandemics show how accounting can become a potent tool in the exercise of biopower, one which has significant effects on the way in which people conduct themselves.

This article addresses the role played by accounting in the government of the Italian colonies of Africa during the Liberal and Fascist periods. Drawing upon the work of Foucault, Scott and Said and their understandings of governmentality and colonialism, and using a wide range of primary sources, the article contributes to the accounting history literature by showing how calculative practices in the form of colonial budgets and regular censuses of the population helped the Italian government to control activities in its colonies. The article shows how accounting practices evolved under different political regimes in the achievement of different programmes of government. It also offers evidence of the ways in which accounting can be mobilised to enable penetrating interventions in the lives of indigenous populations.

Accounting practices were essential to Spain’s transformation into a liberal State. The process began in 1835 as the properties and assets controlled by the Catholic Church and Town Councils were confiscated across the country, culminating in the 1855 seizure process. Informed by Foucault’s concept of governmentality, this paper identifies the role and importance of accounting in the enactment of the seizure process in 1855. The seizure was designed to address a worsening national debt and to replace the values and relationships of the Ancien Regime’s absolute monarchy with the political principles of liberalism. The intended outcome of the confiscation was to lay the foundations of a modern capitalist State at a time of great political, social, and economic turmoil. Ultimately, rather than supporting the liberal aims of the seizure process, accounting practices helped the dominant political classes to further promote their interests. Most properties were sold to people who were already large landowners and this confirmed the true aim of the seizure process: to increase their wealth and, thus, their political power.

We analyse the foundation and organisation of the Regio Teatro Carolino (RTC) in Palermo in the mid-eighteenth century, and its development at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In particular, we examine the accounting system to determine how it was influenced by competing and often conflicting institutional logics. The RTC originated from a private initiative of the Palermo nobility, but soon had to resort to public funding to maintain its artistic performances. Following this process, the Bourbon monarchy implemented control over the RTC and more generally, over all theatrical activities. The research emphasises the different institutional logics that shaped the RTC's management system, highlighting the hybrid characteristics of this institution.

The paper seeks to enhance our understanding of the interaction between the development of disciplinary power in western liberal society and Foucault's writings on governmentality, through examination of the political processes resulting from the largest public scandal in the UK, the Poulson scandal of the early 1970s. The first research motive is to uncover any additional insights or hidden understandings that can be derived by applying Foucauldian historiographical and governmental perspectives as strengthened by Dean's (2010) analytics of government to the history of corporate governance in English local authorities over the forty years following Poulson. We argue that the continual process of intervention, investigation and prescription by central government set in motion by the scandal resulted in an increase in disciplinary power within local government by changing the expectations of council officials, elected representatives and politicians in Westminster through the normalisation of these intrusions and the spirit of dependency and compliance which resulted. Secondly, the paper examines the strengths and weaknesses of the analytics approach in a complex situation involving many genealogical disruptions to the status quo over a long time-period; and whilst the paper found the method helpful, limitations emerged regarding its claims to empirical certainty through precise questioning. Finally, the paper examines the significance of countering corruption as a motivating factor in the rise of disciplinary power in English local government, which it finds as limited.

PurposeThe paper examines how accounting and accounting experts provided important contributions to the Italian government's strategy to address the COVID-19 emergency in 2020, especially in terms of implementing new rules of conduct and providing justification for penetrating interventions in the life of individuals.Design/methodology/approachThe paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach by drawing upon Agamben's concepts of the state of exception, bare life and biosecurity to understand the purposes of the decrees issued by the Italian government and data provided to the citizens in the “daily bulletin” on the crisis by the Civil Protection Department.FindingsAccounting data provided essential contributions to the government's strategy that sought to spread disquiet and uncertainty in the population to ensure compliance with the strict rules in place, thereby sustaining the management of the country under a state of exception.Social implicationsThe study draws attention to the way in which accounting provides justification for measures that are promoted as provisional but which have enduring effects, most importantly the ability of governments in the future to suspend the rights of individuals. It shows how accounting can influence people's behaviour and contribute to the development of a permanent state of exception that significantly increases government prerogatives.Originality/valueThe work contributes to the literature on accounting and emergencies by studying the use of accounting information as a subtle means to ensure support for extreme government actions and ultimately as a political tool that promotes biosecurity as a new government paradigm.

Italian Jews were collected by the Fascists at the Fossoli concentration camp in northern Italy and later transported by the Germans to their extermination camps. This required the suspension of the normal Italian legal protections which Agamben has recognised as the creation of a state of exception that allowed Jews to be denied the rights which gave their life value, thereby reducing them to 'bare life' that could be destroyed without consequence for the killer. Accounting practices used in the management of the Fossoli concentration camp allowed Italian Jews in the camp to become known only with measureable attributes, not individuals with a right to life. Jewish prisoners sent to the extermination camps to be killed became mere numbers, data to be processed. Consequently, accounting practices became fundamental to the Nazis' biopolitical regime that would become part of the attempted annihilation of Italian Jews. The paper recognises the need for researchers to engage more with the genocidal tragedies during the Second World War and in many other recent wars.(c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.