Responsibility and accountability are the issues at the heart of this book. An account episode, according to Professor Schonbach's conception, is a four-phase interaction between an actor and an opponent. Account episodes occur in many different social settings; they are societal means for the resolution or diminution of conflicts engendered by failure events. Frequently, however, such episodes do not accomplish this goal but promote an escalation of the original conflict. The basic questions addressed in this book are under what circumstances an account episode is likely to be successful,...