The Logic of Fateful Choices Faced by the Leaders of Commissions of Inquiry

Abstract

Commission scholars have been skeptical about the reasons governments give for their appointment but have generally accepted that their relationship with government is kept armslength during their inquiry. An analytical framework is developed on the assumption that backdoor feedback and influence occurs up to the fateful day of endorsement. Commissioners choose to behave acquiescently or autonomously on this day by comparing the regret they could imagine experiencing in retirement as they reflect on this choice. The entrepreneurial hope which underlies the autonomous path may be strengthened to the degree that the inquiry generates hopeful discourse. The autonomous formulation and advocacy of a place-shaping vision for local government by Sir Michael Lyons is explained by his affirmative framing of his inquiry that fatefully propelled it through the '4-D' cycle of appreciative inquiry and laid the foundation for an advocacy coalition that could take up the baton of advocating this vision.