INTRODUCTION

During the year 2005, the coordination of the Regional Charter Committee for the United Stated, that was hold by Rob Wheeler, has been taken up by Nina Gregg, who, as a new member of the Charter Team, will take the opportunity of her networks in the country to introduce the Charter and promote discussion of the concept of ‘responsibility’.

The activities lead in 2005 are modest, given the recent change of the coordinator for the US Committee, which reduced the work rhythm.

The activities outlined for 2006 and 2007 are both speculative and ambitious. The extent to which they will be accomplished depends on many factors, not the least of which is the position the word and concept ‘responsibility’ holds in the contested discourses of US politics. Since the Reagan era, ‘responsibility’ has signaled a largely personal and individual ethic within a neo-conservative ideological framework that juxtaposes individual responsibility (for one’s own personal welfare) with government or social responsibility (for increasingly smaller dimensions of the social contract or for voluntary practices in the private sector). ‘Reforms’ in US social policy (such as setting a five-year lifetime limit on eligibility for certain government entitlements and requiring parents of young children to work while receiving state support) and condemnation of the low-income residents of New Orleans for not evacuating the city after Hurricane Katrina are two examples of how the individualistic meaning of ‘responsibility’ has become embedded in social policy and in public discourse, respectively.

Any activities introducing and promoting the Charter will encounter this conceptual and ideological barrier – which will itself provide an opportunity for reflection on the concept of ‘responsibility.’


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	During the year 2005, the coordination of the Regional Charter Committee for the United Stated, that was hold by Rob Wheeler, has been taken up by Nina Gregg, who, as a new member of the Charter Team, will take the opportunity of her networks in the country to introduce the Charter and promote discussion of the concept of ‘responsibility’. The activities lead in 2005 are modest, given the recent change of the coordinator for the US Committee, which reduced the work rhythm. The activities outlined for 2006 and 2007 are both speculative and ambitious. The extent to which they will be accomplished depends on many factors, not the least of which is the position the word and concept ‘responsibility’ holds in the contested discourses of US politics. Since the Reagan era, ‘responsibility’ has signaled a largely personal and individual ethic within a neo-conservative ideological framework that juxtaposes individual responsibility (for one’s own personal welfare) with government or social responsibility (for increasingly smaller dimensions of the social contract or for voluntary practices in the private sector). ‘Reforms’ in US social policy (such as setting a five-year lifetime limit on eligibility for certain government entitlements and requiring parents of young children to work while receiving state support) and condemnation of the low-income residents of New Orleans for not evacuating the city after Hurricane Katrina are two examples of how the individualistic meaning of ‘responsibility’ has become embedded in social policy and in public discourse, respectively. Any activities introducing and promoting the Charter will encounter this conceptual and ideological barrier – which will itself provide an opportunity for reflection on the concept of ‘responsibility.’