For shaken institutions, a demand for accountability

It's a bad time to be a venerable institution.

In recent months some of the pillars of American society Â- be they religious, business, or charitable and sports institutions Â- have seen their reputations battered by allegations of incompetence, fraud, and/or attempted coverups.

The trend began last year, when the American Red Cross was caught withholding donations meant for the victims of Sept. 11. Then Enron, one of the largest and fasted-growing companies in America, collapsed amid allegations of financial shenanigans.

Since then Arthur Anderson has been tainted by Enron's problems. The Roman Catholic Church has been roiled by accusations of laxity concerning pedophile priests. Even the Olympic judging in Salt Lake City turned out to be soft as spring ice.

These multiple failures have helped make Americans more skeptical and less trusting, say some pollsters. It is a "jarring blow" to the American psyche that so many of its gold-standard institutions are failing them, says pollster Peter Hart, who investigated these issues in a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.

"Each of these institutions that really represented the pinnacle of what we thought were our standards are suddenly being eroded," says Mr. Hart.

But others who study American opinion and behavior for a living see something at work that is far more profound than collective hand-wringing. Through all the failures, they say, runs the common thread of a need for accountability. They point to two trends that, along with rebuilding these pillars, could aid progress.

One is the federal government's makeover as it tries to adapt to the fight against terrorism Â- seen in everything from a new military command for North America to the restructuring of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The other is the possible post-Sept. 11 re-engagement of the individual in society Â- Americans are at least professing a greater interest in civic life.

Could this then, be a sort of shape-up decade for America Â- a responsibility era?

"Absolutely," answers historian Kevin Starr, librarian for the state of California. He calls the demand for accountability "the flattening out of big-shot-ism." Reaching back to the revolutionary rejection of the British monarchy for an illustration, Mr. Starr says: "We know, whether he's called 'senator' or 'your eminence', no one is beyond the possibility of sudden collapse."

The upshot, he says, is that these crises "might actually intensify participation" of individuals in society. He cites the Roman Catholic Church as an example. On everything from child abuse to church finances to Catholic schools, "lay people in the pews will demand a higher level of accountability from the bishops," Starr says.

Richard Harwood, president of the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, says today's institutional failures are triggering a "recalibration" of values in American society in the direction of more accountability. "I don't hear people wallowing in despair, like we did with '90s politics," Mr. Harwood says. "Now people are saying: 'We can do better, and we have to act individually and collectively.' "

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