The Hidden Power of Accounting: Accounting as Habitus in World Bank Loans to Tonga

Peni T. Fukofuka Kerry Jacobs* [Working Paper 2011]

School of Accounting and Business Information Systems College of Business and Economics The Australian National University Canberra Australia *Kerry.Jacobs@anu.edu.au

Abstract In this paper we explore the notion that accounting can function as a hidden power. We set this in the context of the literature on indigenous communities and accounting, particularly the contradictory findings that accounting can function both as a tool of powerful groups to oppress and exploit the weak and also as a tool for the weak to resist the powerful. We draw on Pierre Bourdieus notions of field to present a multi-level model of social reality and habitus as an understanding of accounting as the taken for granted rules of the game. We found that, in the case of the interaction between the World Bank and the Kingdom of Tonga the familiarity of the locals with accounting practices and systems was a surprisingly powerful tool of resistance, rebalancing elements of the more structural dominance which would be expected. We therefore argue that accounting functions as a hidden power through the taken for granted rules of the game associated with habitus and further research should focus more on this aspect and function of accounting.

Introduction Thats right. A hidden power. And all the more potent for it. This may sound silly to you, but most of us are only just beginning to realize ourselves that we have this power. (Hines 1988, pg. 257) While it is clearly established in existing literature that accounting is a form of power and possibly domination (Burchell, et al., 1985, Miller, 1986, Hopwood, 1987, Rose, 1991, Hopwood, 1992) comparatively little work have been done to explore what Hines (1988) called the hidden power of accounting where accounting can be mobilized as a tool of resistance and potentially liberation. This paper seeks to explore the hidden power of accounting in defining the rules of the game. Accounting as a tool of power becomes evident in the context of the powerful and the weak. One of the best examples of this is the literature which shows how accounting facilitated the Indigenous domination (Hooper and Pratt, 1995, Davie, 2000, Neu, et al., 2006). However, there is a paradoxical second theme to this work which seems to suggest that in some contexts and in certain settings apparently the weak Indigenous groups were able to resist more powerful groups (Dyball, et al., 2006, Alawattage and Wickramasinghe, 2009) In effect this would suggest that our understanding of power is over-simple and a more sophisticated approach is needed to explain why some were able to resist while others were dominated. In this paper we adopt the theoretical tools of Pierre Bourdieu to provide a process and relational model of power and thereby address the central question of the role of accounting in processes of resistance and domination. Our central insight is that accounting can function both as a taken for granted practice or rules of the game (habitus in Bourdieus language) and as a symbolic or status resource (capital). Various studies have called for accounting research to explore the context within which accounting is practiced (Hopwood, 1983, Hopper and Powell, 1985, Humphrey and Scapens, 1996). We see this paper as an extension of this earlier work. We show how an

understanding of the accounting rules of the game granted Indigenous people of the island kingdom of Tonga tools of resistance when it would be expected that they would be dominated by the World Bank. The issue of accounting and power has been a major theme in accounting research. Studies show that accounting provides visibility for governance at a distance (Burchell, et al., 1985, Miller, 1986, Hopwood, 1987, Rose, 1991, Hopwood, 1992). However, the danger is an overly structuralist reading of this literature which would see power as being imbedded in 3

institutional structures and arrangements. Therefore it is inevitable that institutions such as the World Bank are more powerful than pacific islands and the Australian Government is more powerful than an Indigenous community because that represents the structural arrangements. However, to simply accept these structuralist assumption is to abandon any hope for change because, to quote Leonard Cohen, . . . everybody knows . . . that the fight was fixed . . . the poor stay poor, the rich get rich, thats how it goes, everybody knows. It is unsurprising that many people find this particular song depressing. Yet a structuralist

perspective on power is not the only approach as more relational approaches towards power recognize that what everybody knows is itself an important source of power (Lukes, 1974). What everybody knows are the taken-for-granted rules of the game or to use Bourdieus terminology the habitus. Thinkers such as Elias (1998), Foucault (1977) and Bourdieu (1991) have challenged a structuralist conception of power and argue instead for relational models of power. In effect power is a byproduct of a relationship and not a commodity that an actor (participant) can possess (or necessarily a feature of structural arrangements). Lukes (1974, p. 34) definition of power as by saying that A exercises power over B when A affects B is consistent with this relational model of power. This study takes Barbalet (1985, pg. 531) understanding of resistance as the ability to impose limits on power. Since power is the ability to affect behaviors of individuals, groups and organizations; this study conceptualizes resistance as the ability to limit this affection. For our study, power can be manifested in various ways. First, it can be viewed as the ability of accounting to dictate how Indigenous people do their daily activities and similarly it can be on how locals can force their preferred way of doing things on others. It can also be viewed as the reorganizing (Neu, et al., 2006, Preston, 2006) effect of accounting in that it makes people act, speak and think in a particular manner. Resistance on the other hand is the ability to limit power. We conceptualize accounting as the rules of the game or habitus. For Bourdieu habitus (Bourdieu, 1990, Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992) can be thought of as embedded ways of thinking, speaking and acting. The thinking, speaking and acting is so habitual that it becomes almost instinctive or unthought (McRobbie 2005, pg. 134). It is so entrenched that it can be viewed as rules that predispose individuals to act in particular ways. It makes one 4

behave in a manner that is acceptable to those around them. In other words the habitus makes one feel at home in a particular setting. Accounting can be conceived as habitus because it provides certain ways of acting, thinking and speaking. Those who share an accounting habitus respond to numbers such as profit and budget variance instinctively and feel at home in an accounting environment, whether it is financial report making or an accounting discussion. Our study contributes to existing work (Dyball, et al., 2006, Alawattage and Wickramasinghe, 2009) which investigate accounting and the resistance of Indigenous people to powerful organizations. Dyball et al. (2006) show how the Philippines passively resisted the Americans by not doing accounting while Alawattage and Wickramasinghe (2009) show how Ceylon Tea (Sri Lanka) came up with their own way of accounting as a means of resistance. Our study on the other hand investigates resistance to power by not, not doing accounting or coming up with another form of accounting but through an understanding of accounting rules and using that understanding to challenge the rules. Our study extends the work of Neu et al. (2006) who argued that ...accounting practices embedded within the lending agreements enable, translate and regulate behavior. (pg. 658) The Neu et al. (2006) study was informed by Bourdieus concept of field (Wacquant, 1989, Bourdieu, 1993, Jenkins, 1998). Whilst Bourdieu (1990) maintained that a field can host subfields that relates hierarchically to each other, the Neu et al. (2006) study only considered one field (the national one). We extend the Neu et al. (2006) study in several ways. First, the subfield within the fields of education in Latin America (pg. 636) where the effect they described occurred was not identified. Since Neu et al. (2006) treated education as a unified field; they may have missed changes in subfields and similarly they may have missed subfields that exhibited no change due to accounting1. We will investigate practices of accounting in subfields. Second, we consider the processes involved in the interaction of actors within each field to determine how accounting is practiced. Third we highlight how the habitus of a field and that of participants interact to determine how accounting is practiced. Accounting and Indigenous People

Neu et al. (2006) highlighted that there are subfields within the fields of education however; their main concern was the field at the national level.

Previous studies identified accounting as a tool used by colonial/imperialist nations and supra national organizations to legitimize and sustain their actions in weaker nations. In the case of the Ghanaian Volta River Authority for example, the World Bank used the accounting system to explain their activities and at the same time restrict the experience of the locals (Rahaman, et al., 2004). Historically, some showed how accounting played a part in maintaining dominance in a colonial setting (Neu and Heincke, 2004). Further, some suggest that accounting technologies inherent in the lending agreement between the World Bank and Latin American countries are used to influence the practice within the education sector in those countries (Neu, et al., 2006, Neu and Ocampo, 2007). What the above studies have in common is that they identify accounting as a tool for the more powerful (whether it is the IMF or the World Bank) to sustain and legitimize their actions, thereby increasing their power. There is evidence to argue that accounting was used by Washington government officials to reduce the Navajos livestock in their reservation (Preston, 2006). Preston showed that accounting is useful in enabling, enacting and sustaining actions at a distance when dealing with indigenous people. In addition, accounting was used to support the slavery practices of the British empires. Interestingly, the same tool was used in the freeing of those slaves (Oldroyd, et al., 2008). Gibson (2000) argued that accounting with a narrow focus on economic values assisted in the dispossession of the Australian indigenous people in the past and alarmingly this observation extends to the present. Echoing the same issue, academics have accused the Australian government of using accounting to paint a glut of assistance to indigenous people when it is not the case2. Neu (2000) provided evidence that implicated the role of accounting in the repression of the indigenous people in Canada. He argued that accounting and accountability mechanisms assisted colonial powers to render their objectives into practice which resulted in genocide. Moreover, Greer and Patel (2000) and Chew and Greer (1997) linked accounting to colonialism and imperialism through governing, marginalizing and exploiting colonial subjects. In summary, the role of accounting in colonialism and imperialism is shown to adversely impact indigenous people. Apart from the Neu and Ocampo (2007) study, a main weakness of some of the studies mentioned above (Neu and Heincke, 2004, Rahaman, et al., 2004, Neu, et al., 2006) is their limitations in addressing how power impacts individuals. How did actors at the operational
2

Professor Altman cited in (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/21/2011164.htm )

level reacted and interacted? How were they equipped? How did they view the idea of being subjugated (do they view it as such)? How were their lives changed? What knowledge did they have? Previous studies generally discussed institutions and forces that interacted to impose order upon and influence a particular field; their focus is generally structural. However, Foucault (1979, 2003) argued that it is imperative to study and understand how power is experienced by individuals. To that extend our study provides evidence regarding individuals struggle with power. Their reaction to such powers and how they protect themselves from the influence of powerful organizations. We generally show that an understanding of accounting can protect them from being oppressed. Foucault (1979, 2003) claimed that the appropriate way to study power is to start from the bottom. Looking first at how power is mobilized at a micro-level; understanding its various forms and how it is exercised at different sites and ascertain whether the change it brings persists or temporary in nature. He further maintains that power should be studied where power is exerted rather than where power originates, to explore how subjugation is operationalised and to view power as emerging from a relationship. The studies mentioned above were limited in addressing these issues. As such, how the local Ghanaians (Rahaman, et al., 2004) were impacted is not particularly clear nor is the case of the locals in Latin America (Neu, et al., 2006). Did the impacts these studies explained persist, or were they only of a temporary manner? Did the individuals feel subjugated or empowered? The main understanding proposed in our study about power is that although institutions or structures affect processes of organizations and individuals the later also has an impact on the former. Calhoun (2003) argued that the two are inseparably related to each other (pg. 286) The Rules of the Game Bourdieu uses a game analogy to explain society and societal activities. As the practice of accounting is an activity that takes place in society, we argue that using similar analogy to explain our findings is appropriate. Such an approach is beneficial because the role of accounting in the interaction between the World Bank and Tonga is a dynamic and not a static one. The game analogy provides us with the means of explaining and analyzing the changing nature of their interaction. For our study, society is likened to a game that takes place in several fields with different players having access to differing resources (social, economic and cultural capitals). These resources are used to navigate the players into a 7

winning position. However, how these players mobilize their respective resources are constrained by the rules of the game or habitus in Bourdieus language (Bourdieu, 1986, Bourdieu, 1990). The field within which the game of accounting practice takes place is a ...a network, or a configuration, of objective relations between positions (Wacquant 1989; pg. 39). Fields can hold subfields and relates to each other in a hierarchical fashion (Bourdieu 1990). We are interested in a range of fields in Tonga. In this case the highest field (which Bourdieu calls the field of power) is field of the national (Tongan) politics and the lowest sub-field considered is the primary school. Within a field positions are occupied by players (or actors) and they can be more or less dominant depending on the rules of the field (habitus) and the access to the capital resources most valued in that particular field (Bourdieu, 1985, Wacquant, 1989, Jenkins, 1998). As such the winners of games within fields are not predetermined as access to as all positions are positions of possibility (cited in Oakes et al. 1998, pg. 260) rather than inevitable outcomes. In a very real way the outcome of the game is dependent on how the game is played. In this study the key actors are the World Bank, World Bank consultants, the Tongan Government, Government officials, local consultants, project managers, accountants and primary school principals. While the actual game maybe observable the rules of the game are not be. Therefore access to these rules is dependent upon accounts given of by actors and the reflexive work of the researcher (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). Our main focus in this study is the nature of accounting as a hidden power - the rules of the game. Bourdieus notion of habitus has been described as the silent curriculum (Moi, 1991). Although unspoken they are not passive as it has the ability to restructure the field thereby having a profound effect on the games played (Bourdieu, 1984, Bourdieu, 1991, Moi, 1991). Within a game players think, act and speak however they are already preprogrammed by these rules to do so in a particular manner (Bourdieu, 1991). It is likened to behaving freely but within the constraints of embedded, unspoken and silent rules. We argue that accounting can be understood as the rules of the game, the hidden curriculum and the habitus because much of the existing financial and administrative arrangements are built upon the taken for granted assumption of accounting practice. Accounting is so imbedded and invisible that it is described by some as the

language of business. It would not be wrong to also describe it as the language of public administration, accountability and international financial control. We argue that when Hines 8

(1988) highlighted the hidden power of accounting she described the influence of accounting as the unspoken/silent rules that determine practice in many fields. Therefore by an

understanding of accounting as habitus we better understand the role and importance of accounting in relational process of power. In this paper we also recognise that there are traditional values, assumptions and taken for granted ideas which influence the way that Tongans interact with others and play the game. Historians believe that at one stage Tongans ruled an empire that stretched from Niue to Tikopia; a straight line distance of 2500km (Poulsen, 1977, Mahina, 1990, Dutton and Tyron, 1994, Luders, 1996, Calder, et al., 1999, Petersen, 2000) and in the past Tongan warriors conquered their neighbouring islands including Fiji (Etherington, 2005) and Samoa in 1200 A.D3. Tonga is the only Pacific Island nation to avoid formal colonization. It has been ruled as a Monarchy with an unbroken succession back to when the country was united in 1831. In 2010 the country took steps to become a constitutional monarchy with their first ever fully representative election. However, there is still an extremely strong respect for the Monarch and the nobility who are considered to embody the Tongan ideas of the imperial minded warrior. Given these cultural and historical attitudes and the absence of the strong colonial influence we would expect that the Tongans may be more resistant to the influence of the World Bank than some other national groups. Design As our study investigates the power relations between parties in particular spaces and the role of accounting in such relationships, we did 13 semi-structured interviews, 1 focus group discussion and documents review. In effect access to the rules of the game requires a process of reflexitivity involving both the researcher and the researched (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). Ahrens and Chapman (2006) contented that a qualitative field researcher can only make sense of the social reality of those in the field if they can shed light on their activities and the reasons for such activities. Accordingly, our data collection methods assist us illuminate the activities of actors within specific fields and the reasons for their activities. We have selected The World Banks relationship with the Kingdom of Tonga (Tonga) as our case for investigating how accounting functions as a hidden power. This selection is relevant for several reasons. First, prior studies that looked at accounting and Indigenous people
3

http://www.janesoceania.com/samoa_chron_history/

studied accounting in countries that were colonized. Tonga on the other hand was never colonized. In addition, Tongans were once colonizers themselves. These may have preconditioned them to behave in a manner that is different from how other Indigenous people behaved. Second, Tonga is a highly educated nation (UNDP, 2007/2008) compared to other nations of similar economic standard. Bourdieus (1984) work would suggest that access to education might make a different in how the interactions between the World Bank and Tonga proceed. Some suggested that a study of any field involves an intimate understanding of the dynamics of the field (Geertz, 1995, Hastrup, 1997, Ahrens and Chapman, 2006). Greer and Patel (2000) argue that accounting research is limited in that it is usually done from the perspective of the politically and economically privileged. Our study has a particular advantage in this matter. The primary researcher is a citizen of Tonga, spent most of his life in Tonga and is embedded in the Tongan way of thinking. More than ninety percent of those interviewed is known at a personal level by him. In this regard, the primary researcher is present in the field in the sense that he understands the habitus of the field. We propose that such an understanding significantly enhances the integrity of the analysis of the actors activities within the subfields in Tonga and we suggest that our reported findings are generally the natives point of view (Ahrens and Chapman, 2006, pg. 827) Within Tonga the national field represents the space and focus of political and social elites. It roughly approximates what Bourdieu (1996) described as the field of power. Therefore in this paper we have focused on both the over-arching national field and also on the particular subfields which had been directly impacted by the World Bank lending agreements. Following Bourdieu we would suggest that each sub-field can have their own elites, capital and habitus. Therefore, while Neu et al. (2006) argued that ...accounting practices

embedded within the lending agreements enable, translate and regulate behaviour. (pg. 658), we would suggest that it is not appropriate to assume that the accounting processes and changes engendered by the World Bank at the national level have the same impacts at the lower levels. Therefore we have focused our research on both the national and the sub-fields as illustrated in table 1.

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Figure 1: Fields in Tonga

National Field (A)

Ministry of Education ( A & B)

Ministry of Finance (A)

Ministry of Health (A & B )

Ministry of Works and Disaster and Relief ( A & B)

Tonga Education Support Sector ( A & B)

Health Support Sector B)

(A &

Primary Schools ( A & B)

Figure 1 Keys : A = document review , B = Interviews

The documents we reviewed consist of agreements between Tonga and the World Bank, the World Bank and other countries and documents given to us by interviewees. This included the agreements between the World Bank and the Ministry of Education, Finance, Health and Works and Disaster and Relief of Tonga. Each agreement contains directions that involves but are not limited to; financial management systems, subcommittees, procurement plans and employment posts to be established. These directions are negotiated at the national field but are carried out by lower level officials and institutions. Some directions are imposed on the next level of government whilst others implicate levels that are much lower. For example, when the agreement requires that a project steering committee be established, this is a direction to be followed at ministry level. On the other hand, directions pertaining to procurement have implications that reach all the way down to primary schools level. These documents gave us our initial understanding of what takes place within each field. It assisted us in identifying those to be interviewed. Knowledge from the reviews also assisted in the wordings of the interview questions. Our interview data was collected from fields as shown in Figure 1. A snowball sampling technique was used to enhance the likelihood of collecting data from only those who are implicated in the relationship of the World Bank and Tonga. The use of this sampling approach is consistent with previous accounting literature (Edwards and Cyril, 1998, Scott, et 11

al., 2003, Neu, et al., 2006). We interviewed 13 participants who were current and former World Bank officials, school principals and national advisors, project accountants and managers. The interviews were semi structured in nature and it was both in Tongan and in English. In order to limit the risk of mistranslating (from Tongan to English) we took steps to ensure that the transcriptions and translations were as accurate as possible. This included having the primary researcher and another Tongan independently transcribe and translate the data from Tongan to English where it was necessary. The two resulting documents were then compared and any discrepancies were discussed and resolved. Any unresolved issues were referred back to the interviewee for clarifications. Table 1 shows the summary of our data collection activities. Table 1: Data collection activities
Research Activity Number of interviews Average duration of interviews Number of focus group discussion Duration of focus group discussion Medium of focus group discussion Medium of interview Documents Medium of getting feedback to queries Activity characteristic 13 47 minutes 1 1.5 hours Face to face Face to face and telephone interviews 9 Emails and telephones

Our interview questions were informed by previous literature and were tailored to address themes such as: who has most power in determining how accounting is practiced, how the practice of accounting impacts the activities in the subfields, what are the capitals available in the fields, what methods do the locals employ to resist doing what the agreements directs them to do. In addition, we the researchers worked to be reflexive on our positions as researchers at all times (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). We realise that our individual habituses will influence how we interpret the data that we gathered. We propose that the difference in our cultural 12

affiliation (one is Tongan and one is a white fella) has placed us in a position to better reflect on our findings and our positions as researchers. We actively discussed our findings and our interpretations were scrutinised as much as possible. We do not assert that we have eliminated the biases our differing positions (in terms of cultural upbringings, academic backgrounds and others) brings to our study however we considered this throughout our study. Similar concerns were raised by (Townley, 1995, Oakes, et al., 1998) and like them a realisation of such limitation did not stop us from doing our study.

National Field: Tonga and the World Bank While there are a number of important social and political issues to concern the Tongan political elite it is clear that, during the period of study, the establishment and management of key World Bank projects were a significant issue for the country as a whole. As the terms and the conditions of these loans would have a wide impact on many aspects of Tongan society, the negotiation and management of these loans were controlled at the highest political and administrative levels. The determination of the terms of the lending agreement was an important site of contestation or game and the two key players in that game were the World Bank and the Ministry of Finance of Tonga. On one side the World Bank had money, they also had a wealth of experience in running projects in other countries and they had control over the rules that nations were required to follow in order to receive a loan. However the Tongan Ministry of Finance also had resources in the form of local knowledge, networks and a sound and proven financial management system. It is important to recognize that the loan documents presented to Tonga were not in isolation from the wider portfolio of loan agreements established and managed by the World Bank. In fact the financial accountability requirements for Tonga were quite similar to the requirements for other countries such as Colombia and Egypt. For Tonga: The Borrower shall maintain a financial management system, including records and accounts, and prepare financial statements in accordance with consistently applied accounting standards acceptable to the Association, adequate to reflect the operations, resources and expenditures related to the Project Sec. 4.01. (a)

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For Colombia: The Borrower shall cause ICETEX to maintain within the PCU [project coordination unit] a financial management system, including records and accounts, and prepare financial statements in a format acceptable to the Bank, adequate to reflect the operations, resources and expenditures related to the Project Sec. 4.01. (a) For Egypt: The Borrower shall, through Ministry of Education establish and maintain a financial management system, including records and accounts, and prepare financial statements in accordance with consistently applied accounting standards acceptable to the Bank, adequate to reflect the operations, resources and expenditures related to the Project. Sec. 4.01. (a) This illustrates that the approach adopted by the World Bank to Tonga was not different to the approach to other developing countries seeking their financial assistance. Therefore we would argue that any significant difference can be attributed to the Tongan negotiations. In this case the significant difference was in how the requirement for a financial management system was actually implemented. In effect whether the system implemented was the

financial management system preferred by the World Bank or whether the local financial management system was deemed to be sufficient for the purpose of managing and monitoring the loan arrangements. In the Tongan case interviews suggested that the financial management system of the Tongan Ministry of Finance was adopted and the World Bank system was not imposed. As a consequence the accounting rules (rules of the game) were controlled by the Tongans not the World Bank. This local control was also extended to the audit and review procedures associated with the loans: We [locals] also convinced them [World Bank] that we could use the existing government auditing procedure to audit the money and they agreed The fact that the financial management system was the Tongan system was not accidental but intentional on the part of key players on the Tongan side. In fact this could even be seen as an expression of some of the Tongan attitudes towards authority and rulership. At one stage during negotiations, the late Akauola4 representing Tonga became frustrated with the many financial requirements which were sometimes competing and conflicting. He told the major donors to Tonga to harmonize their agreements. A World Bank official recalled the incident:
4

The late 'Akau'ola, also known as Inoke Fotu Faletau, was the Noble (Matapule) and owner of the Island Taunga in Tonga. Taunga is located in the south Vava'u Group in the far north of the country. Educated in New Zealand and England, he held many senior political, administrative and diplomatic positions.

14

Akauola, sat us all down (World Bank official, NZ Aid official and AusAid Official), and he told us not to return (for discussion), until we decided on how to harmonise our requirements When this recollection was put forward to two Tongans (one an expert in Tongan culture and another of noble blood) their immediate response was: Kuo fieeiki e tama ia! (translation He is domineering!) The term fieeiki has a special meaning in the Tongan culture. It means that one is invoking the power inherent in the traditional hereditary chiefly blood line that one comes from to effect dominance. One than must be of noble descent to invoke this characteristic. When a noble is fieeiki it is ...acceptable and moral in the Tongan society... (Tongan culture expert) and it is usual to view a chief as being domineering as Tongan culture is tolerant of this behavior. Akauola is one of the big nobles of Tonga, a descendent of traditional warriors, was once Minister of Police and Governor of one of the three main islands of Tonga (Vavau). As such he is used to ruling. Coming from such a background, we propose that Akauola has been preconditioned to behave in this manner. His years of ruling in other contexts may have impacted upon his actions in determining the financial arrangements of donors lending agreements. Tonga Education Support Sector (TESP) The agreement for the TESP was signed between Tonga and the World Bank was signed on the 16th June 2005 and the project is scheduled to complete on the 30 June 2011. The ultimate source of funding was the New Zealand government although it was administrated by the World Bank. In effect the TESP fell within the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education and was within the broader field of education in Tonga. However, while it would impact

elements of the higher political and policy field it also was to have a significant impact on many primary schools throughout Tonga through a system of performance measurement and financial control known as the financial management control system (FMCS). The other major point of contention was over procurement policy. There was some pressure to adopt the World Bank procurement policies. However, local policies and procedures were retained: . our department then must follow the local procurement policy when spending that money, as if it was all part of the local resource

15

This case is important because it shows the introduction of accounting practices within different levels in a field. At the national level key players were World Bank officials, the Tongan Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Education officers. However, at a local and school level the significant players were the consultants charged with implementing these new systems and the school principals. The question that remains is how these different groups responded to the new accounting rules and whether the existing educational habitus remained dominant. The introduction of the FMCS into the Tongan education system would be expected to be a major change to operations at both a national and a local level. However, the view from the TESP officials and the World Bank officials interviewed was that there was little change as the result of the lending agreements and financial reporting demands. Access to local knowledge and networks (social capital) proved decisive in confrontations between the Tongan officials and the World Bank officers. The manager of TESP shared one incident when she had a dispute with a World Bank official. When the World Bank official attempted to raise the issue with the Minister of Education and over-rule the apparently lower-status TESP manager. The Minister backed the local official rather than the World Bank representative. When I took the World Bank guy and the NZAID rep to debrief the minister (Minister of Education) after the meeting, the World Bank guy told the minister that I (local participant) wouldnt agree with what he suggested. He kept on pushing the Minister to agree to what he proposed but I was so happy that the minister didnt (agree with him). In this case the local control over the accounting systems and the associated rules and procedures seemed to place local actors in a more powerful position than in the comparable case described by Neu et al. (2006) where there was not the same level of local control. However, habitus has a dual nature describing both the values or rules encoded within a field and the values or rules encoded upon the individual. Accounting rules can characterize both an individual and a field. When the individual shares an accounting habitus which also characterizes the field they will feel at home or will be what Bourdieu (1992, pg. 127) described as a fish in water. It is also equally possible that they could be a fish out of water when their internalized habitus (with or without accounting) is inconsistent with the legitimized habitus of the field. Therefore an accounting habitus may not fit some fields and education is one setting where we would expect that the accounting habitus might not necessarily be helpful. However, Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992, p. 184) recognized that 16

fields are shaped by a tension between the autonomous and the heteronomous pole. In effect this tension is between the distinctive or autonomous habitus values which define the field and the broader heteronomous social, economic and/or political habitus. In addition any actor (or position) within a field is shaped by the same tension. Webb et al (2002, p. 108) provide the example of one teacher defending the autonomous educational values of education for the sake of education while another teacher argues that schools must pay their way, demonstrate their success according to business models and demonstrate the values of the education to the broader economy. Therefore the place of accounting rules, measures, values and attitudes in the educational field is ambiguous and undetermined. We would expect that local Tongan culture and values may also have an important influence on actors within the educational field. In this study the major positions in this field are occupied by local consultants and primary school principals. The Local Field - Primary Schools Discussion with officials from the primary schools revealed a contrasting phenomenon from that in the TESP executive. At the school level there was little by way of a visible financial management system and school principals did not have any particular accounting knowledge. Prior to the implementation of the education project, the financial accounting mechanism at primary school field were based on trust. The Parents and Teachers Associations (PTA) would collect funds, give them to the principal and he or she would put it to appropriate use. The PTA trusted the principal to act in the best interest of the primary school. However, this type of accounting was not adequate for the performance measurement and auditing requirements associated with the World Bank loan and a reform of the reporting practices was initiated. One of the Tongan officials responsible for the TESP project said: These principals have always worked with the PTA and the consensus was basically that trust has a lot to do with how PTA fund was accounted for. With the World Bank stuff, we have to try and wean them from this customary way of looking after the PTA fund. There are certain procedures that they must follow now that requires extensive paper work and less on the trust based accountability they were used to the poor principal probably does not do anything else other then receipting, filling in this and that Therefore the introduction of accounting practices and procedures at the primary school level was a particular challenge for many of the principals who did not have skills and expertise in the accounting area as they were now required to complete much more paperwork than previously. Some principals operated in locations and settings where meeting the newly 17

introduced administrative and reporting requirements was a particular problem. One example of this was a primary school on remote outer islands such as Mango. However, in telling this story the principal shows both the issue facing principals under the new system and their own lack of familiarity and comfort with accounting language. The teachers from the small island schools in the small islands for example if you purchase anything over five hundred you have to have three invoices [quotes] and if you are sitting in a little school like Mango for example, how on earth are you going to get three receipts [quotes] from anywhereyou have to close the school...So the schools has to put in place for example an annual action plan and they have to ensure they comply with the financial requirements which means they have to have an invoice, everything that they buy or purchase must go through the same processes so there is a huge manual which schools must read and comply with . . . In order to assist principals with this transition local consultants were appointed. These consultants were experienced administrators, prominent members of their communities and some of them held PhDs. Rather than external validation (cultural capital) legitimization such as university degrees and professional qualifications in accounting the local consultants draw on the Tongan culture and their status within the education system to validate their claims as accounting experts. These consultants are all well known in the local area (as well as being personally known to the primary researcher - some of them for over fifteen years). Rather than accountants they were secondary school teachers of science, english and geography (respectively). However, some of were of noble blood, some had held high offices in religious institutions and all (with one exception) were previous school principals. Such people would naturally command and generally be given respect in Tongan societies. When the local consultants were asked who determined how accounting should be done at the primary school level, one of these local consultants remarked with pride that they were the accounting experts. This authority and their claim to expertise were generally accepted by the primary school principals who said that: We just have to follow as they (local consultants) know more about these things than us From the focus group discussion it appeared that how accounting was practiced in primary school level was generally determined by the local consultants. This came out clearly when one senior local consultant said:

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Yes ... we (local consultants) help the principals comply with all the reporting requirements and prepare the budget...There are systems for the cheques and the vouchers... Another reflected: So a lot of time was spent on training the people how to do the annual plan, and then once they have developed the annual plan then we (local consultants) have to teach them how to cost the activities and then draw up a budget and the budget is supposed to be linked to the plan which is supposed in turn to be linked to the goals and the vision of a particular primary school... When asked about whether the local consultants had any formal accounting training; the answer was a firm negative. A senior local consultant commented that they just sat around and discussed the type of accounting that they should teach the primary school officials. They came up, amongst other things, with a cashbook and its appropriate format and ways to reconcile cash book to cash balance at the end of the period. When asked where they got this knowledge from, the answer was that it was attained from previous working experience at management level and as secondary school principals. It was in this capacity that they learnt accounting knowledge. Some also said that they learnt accounting from being in church finance committees. It is important to understand local values and attitudes in this setting as an outsiders reading of the behavior of the school principals would suggest that they regarded the consultants as accounting experts. However, that is an over-simple understanding. Tonga is a small place everyone generally knows what everyone else is doing. As such the primary school principals were aware that these consultants were not accounting experts. However they were aware of the high positions in society these consultants have. As such the above statement is to be understood as a manifestation of the natural inclination of Tongans to be in a position of subjugation when they come into to contact with those of high social religious and class standing (particularly the nobility/royalty). To behave differently would be unTongan. In this field the traditional habitus facilitated the distribution and the acceptance of the accounting knowledge. Although these consultants would not generally be considered accounting experts, their grasp of the broader heteronomous rules and practices associated with the TESP reforms and their status within the local community gave them the power to write the local accounting rules of the game which would become the taken for granted practices. On the other hand the school principals lack of understanding of the practice of accounting made them fish out of 19

water within their own school. In effect they no longer knew how to be principals as the rules of what being a principal was were changed with the introduction of accounting measurements and reporting. We conceptualize accounting as habitus and we viewed this habitus as those hidden rules that predetermine how one behaves. Changes to the nature of these rules, particularly a transformation between the autonomous and the herenomous poles may empower one group (in this case the consultants) and disempower other groups (in this case the school principals) when one group is more familiar and adept with the accounting rules than another. It is the taken-for-granted nature of accounting as habitus which makes any claim to accounting expertise (however tenuous) so powerful. This case would seem to support Webb et als (2002, p. 108) conjecture that actors in fields such as education who ignore the wider market and managerial imperatives associated with the heteronomous influences of business and politics are unlikely to have much authority or influence in the school system.

Health Support Sector Project (HSS) The general aim of the Health Support Sector Project (HSS) project is to improve the quality of health of the people of Tonga and this was signed in July 2003 to run until July 2009. The Minister of Finance represented Tonga in the signing of the agreement with the World Bank although the Tongan Ministry of Health was the key player in this area at a national level. While the project was intended to impact a number of different areas of health policy and delivery in Tonga (including health care financing and the quality of service delivery) a major element of the project was to improve information management, resource allocation, management, efficiency and project management. Therefore changes to accounting, recordkeeping and performance measurement were central to the project. The project agreement called for the establishment of a Project Management Unit (PMU) and a steering committee and went as far to determine the membership of each committee. In addition, procedures pertaining to financial management and procurement were also outlined in the agreement. The financial requirements called for the implementation of a World Bank advocated accounting package called MTX. However, the Tonga civil servants who were responsible for implementing the project did not like this system and argued that it did not work. This posed some difficult because when a similar project took place in Samoa they 20

used MTX. The Samoan officials reported to the World Bank that MTX was working well and hence the call for its usage in Tonga. It was subsequently revealed that despite the positive reports that the MTX system had caused problems in Samoa. In this case the Tongan officials challenged the World Bank requirements and were able to use their own system based on an excel spread-sheet. In effect this illustrates that although the World Bank requirements may appear overwhelming and that they are imposed without negotiation upon the borrower nations that this is too simple. There are a range of elements and practices (particularly around the nature and operation of the accounting systems) which can vary from country to country. One interesting question is why the Tongan officials were able to challenge the accounting system used where the Samoans complied with the World Bank requirements. One argument is that the Tongans have a culture of resisting external (although perhaps not internal) domination. However, it is interesting to contrast this loan agreement with the position of primary school principals in the TESP project. The key officials involved in the health area had a good level of accounting expertise and experience and therefore shared an accounting habitus. As a consequence they were in a good position to resist or redirect the changes. The result was they had an accounting system under their control. In contrast the school principals had relatively little expertise in accounting and therefore were able to be dominated by the local consultants who had (relatively) more familiarity with the accounting habitus associated with the TESP project. The power of accounting skills was highlighted by the HSS project manager who said: Had the MTX been working well, our staff would have picked up new skills from it. However, our staff just utilized their own knowledge and skills (excel) for this purpose.

The recognized accounting skills of the Tongan staff involved in the HSS project were a value not only in the interaction with the World Bank but also in subsequent interactions with other external funding bodies. The same local participants in the HSS field are also

employed under a Japan and Australian multi million project to the hospital. Accounting habitus equipped these locals with the embedded knowhow to feel at home in such expensive projects.

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Ministry of Transport
The Government of Tonga and the World Bank entered into an agreement (in July 2008 for completion in July 2011 but extended to December 2013). This was partially funded by the Australian Government and was intended to improve the Tongan transport infrastructure. The project mainly focused on the consolidation of the Tongan transport sector under the Ministry of Transport, aviation and maritime safety and road maintenance. The public transport activities in Tonga were under two public enterprises (Ports Authority Tonga and Tonga Airport Ltd.) and one government ministry (the Ministry of Transport). The transport system in Tonga was fragmented as the Ports Authority Act 1998 (which governed the Ports Authority of Tonga and sea transport) did not give the Ministry of Transport as the safety regulator any jurisdiction over the Ports Authority. In fact it was difficult to run the project through Ministry of Transport as they did not have the ability to regulate and control the safety of the ports. The World Bank insisted that Tonga address the gap between the Ministry of Transport and Port Authority by signing a memorandum of understanding. This was because of the perception that Port Authority Tongas safety measures were not up to standard. At the time of the field work, negotiations on the memorandum of understanding were underway. in fact there is a cabinet decision now which tries to bridge that gap which would be good for all parties as right now the relationship is not good between the two. The outcome was a Tongan Parliamentary decision which changed the rules and brought the Port Authority under the Ministry of Transport with regards to transport safety regulations. This serves to illustrate how actors can gain a dominant position in a game by changing the rules of the game and how the entry of another actor to the field (in this case the World Bank) deformed (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1998) the field which led to a change in rules. In effect the World Bank tipped the scales in favor of the Ministry of Transport. However, this was not really a process of direct confrontation but of negotiation between the Ministry of Transport and the Port Authority to bridge the gap between their respective roles, Despite reporting and auditing requirements there was relatively little accounting impact associated with this project and loan agreement. The Ministry of Transport had a well established and well developed accounting system with sufficient staff which was deemed to be acceptable to the World Bank. 22

We have the assessment by the financial specialist (World Bank specialist) which shows he thought that the financial capacity at Ministry of Transport and Tonga Airport Ltd was adequate for the project (this was at the initial stage of the project assessment). So there were no requirements to have extra staff or a new system in place. With the accounting practice the locals knew the rules of the game as such they were not dominated. This field is also important as it highlights how a field can be deformed (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1998) once new players enter the game.

The Cyclone Emergency Recovery and Management (Waka) Project The Waka project was signed in May 2002 and ran until June 2007 and it was a World Bank administration of funds provided by the Australian Government to help build cyclone resistant houses for Tongan families who had lost theirs in a tropical cyclone that hit Tonga in 2001. In addition there was also the objective of restoring social infrastructure, and to strengthen and upgrade emergency and risk management capacity. involved was the Tongan Ministry of Works, Disaster and Reliefs. The main agency Here the issue of

accounting proved to be but one factor in the context of broader issues relating to the building codes and land ownership. In short the involvement of the World Bank in Tonga in terms of this project had major, unexpected and far-reaching implications for many taken for granted aspects of Tongan life. One of the World Banks requirements in the Waka Project was for Tonga to establish a building code. There was a belief that a formalized building code would assist in ensuring that future housing was more cyclone resistant. The Tonga government has been trying to establish one for sometime but had not succeeded. occurrence. The project manager had this to say: Tonga has been struggling to establish a building code for years and if it wasnt for World Bank, we would still be without any code... The introduction of a building code changed the rules for construction in Tonga and empowered one particular group; the local builders. The code required that a professional builder must assess the building plans in order to ensure code compliance prior to construction commencing. Therefore the builders obtained the power to declare a building as compliant or not compliant with the code. The project accountant associated with the Waka project noted that the code had produced financial benefits for the builders: 23 The Waka Project hastened its

 I feel that these new building requirements are used commercially by the local consultants who are making the assessment

Not only did the local builders make money out of the Waka project, their position as buildings experts were legitimized further in Tonga. The World Bank was able to change the building rules in Tonga which restructured the activities of the Tongans in relation to building houses. This change to the rules of the game deformed the field by changing the power distribution so that players that were not powerful became more prominent in the field. It is doubtful that the World Bank explicitly intended to empower the builders at the expense of others and this could be regarded as an unexpected outcome of a change to the rules of the game. However, more significant that the changes to the building code were the changes to the system of land ownership in Tonga. The World Bank insisted that for one to own a cycloneresistant house, the piece of land upon which the house is built on must be registered as owned by the owner of the house. This is particularly interesting as some of the people who have been impacted by the cyclone (and therefore were the target of the project) were living in land owned by Tongan nobles. The Tongan tradition was that all land was owned by the King who had allocated portions to Nobles as hereditary estates. Therefore the notion of land ownership by individuals (other than the Nobles or the King) was a fundamental challenge to this tradition. In this case the intervention of the World Bank succeeded in undermining the traditional property rights of the Tongan nobles and enfranchising the common people. Some of the house owners who had their houses repaired were able to register land for themselves. Again it is improbable that the World Bank officers who prepared this loan considered or intended this consequence. Nevertheless a change to the rules of the game had far-reaching consequences, including undermining elements of the Tongan nobility. This project was the site of particular conflict between the Tongan project accountant and World Bank consultants on which accounting package to use. The World Bank required that an accounting package called MTX (the same package required as part of the HSS project) be used to monitor and control the financial activity. Through many intense dialogues and threats of being fired, the local accountant was not only able to do his job using Microsoft Excel (his preference) but was also able to point out to the World Bank officials the short

24

comings of MTX. In addition there was evidence that the same accountant was able to successfully effect variations to the directions given to him by World Bank officials. The consultant from Samoa with myself tried with the accounting package but because it didnt work, I was thought not to have the capacity to manage the project; hence they considered dismissing me from the job. However, a rep from World Bank came and assessed the situation and proved that I was right. Hence they agreed for me to continue and my salary to be raised from $X0,000 to $X0,000 [a rise of 50%] . . . The auditor then directed the project to buy QuickBooks to be used (cost of $5,000). However, considering the project had been running for four years, I realized I had to input them all into QuickBooks. So I got back to World Bank and explained how everything so far had been done on spreadsheet. Similarly as there was only six more months before the completion of the project, there would be no payments made, just auditing. Hence there was no point using a new accounting package for the project. They agreed and they reversed their decision on using QuickBooks. Although institutions can effect changes upon a field, individuals are able to respond in various manners one of which is defiance (Oliver 1991). But to mobilize this defiance, the one doing the defiance must be familiar with the rules of the game. In this particular instance, the local accountant was able to use his accounting and information technology knowledge to good effect. When asked about whether any accounting knowledge was introduced as a result of the project, the answer was no. As the project manager puts it: Our accountant had no problem complying with the reporting requirement. It helped as they had their own staff visiting us on a regular basis just to make sure things are carried out properly. So, in general it was a learning experience for all of us, but not specifically in accounting knowledge. It was an understanding of the rules of the game that enabled the local accountant to resist some of the changes that was required of him. It is worth noting that accounting knowledge has legitimized the position of this local accountant in the local setting especially with foreign donations to Tonga. Currently he is the project accountant for one of the multimillion dollar projects of the European Union to Tonga. In general the ability of the lending agreement to enable, regulate and translate behavior was in areas like land registration and building code. The unfamiliarity of the locals with how to play the game in these areas facilitated the World Bank initiatives. This is in contrast to the accounting requirements of the lending agreement whereby the locals were familiar with the

25

rules of the game and therefore were able to feel at home in the game and as such their domination was kept to a minimum. The Neu et al. (2006) study argues that inherent in the reporting requirements of the World Bank are technologies bounded by accounting/financial expertise. These technologies had the effects of enabling, translating and regulating behaviour upon the education field. We propose that the degree of enablement, translation and regulation depends on the familiarity of the locals with the rules of the games played by the World Bank officials. In effect the local understanding of accounting and their ability to negotiate control of their own accounting systems (rather than having them imposed by the World Bank) meant that local agents were empowered to resist elements of regulation and domination by the World Bank. Control over the accounting rules of the game is the hidden power of accounting and is a powerful tool of resistance in the hands of groups which might appear otherwise powerless. This insight serves to illustrate the notion that power is essentially relational and contextual therefore notions of field and habitus need to be employed in order to recognise that in different contexts, different rules of the game can be in play. However, the question of who wins the game is always a question of empirics not of theory. Therefore in responding to Leonard Cohen with the Gershwins - what everybody knows aint necessarily so.

Conclusion In this paper we explore the notion that accounting can function as a hidden power. We reject a more structuralist understanding of power which tends to see power as being associated with institutions and argue instead for a more relational form of power based on the work of Pierre Bourdieu. In effect we argue that accounting can be understood as part of the habitus or rules of the game. It is the taken for granted nature of these rules and therefore of accounting which makes it a hidden power. One aspect of the accounting literature which has particularly addressed the issue of power and accounting is the work which relates to indigenous communities and accounting. While a major theme of this work is that accounting represents a tool of powerful groups to oppress and exploit the weak, there is a contradictory sub-theme which argues that in some setting and in certain circumstances the weak seem to be able to resist the influence and power of the powerful. We draw this theory of power from the work of Bourdieu, particularly his notions 26

of field and habitus. We argue that in order to address this paradox there is a need to recognise the multi-level nature of social reality which Bourdieu calls the field. In effect different groups or individuals can occupy positions of power in different fields. Therefore someone who appears powerful in one field might be relatively weak in another field. They key to who is or is not powerful is the habitus or rules of the game associated with a particular field. We posit the notion of accounting as habitus We investigated the consequence of being familiar with the rules of the game, specifically when indigenous people are familiar with the rules of accounting practice. Our cases consisted of various instance of interaction between the World Bank and the Kingdom of Tonga. Building upon studies that have investigated the association between accounting and power, we proposed that if the indigenous people understand the rules of the game of accounting practice than they are able to put up a resistance to power. This resistance might not be visible all the time. We draw on Bourdieus game analogy to explain how an

understanding of the rule of the game can be a powerful means of deflecting oppression. We conceptualised the various interactions between Tonga and the World Bank as games played. The game that is of most interest to us is practice of accounting. However we also investigated other games that included the building code game, the public transport game and the land ownership game. Consistently in each of these games, we found an association between the success of the Bank to influence local practices and the familiarity of the locals with the rules of each game. We generally found that when it comes to the practice of accounting game, the locals were familiar with the rules of that game and this facilitated their ability to thwart off attempts from the Bank to restructure their daily practice. We also found that when this game was played in the primary school field, the primary school principals were not familiar with the game and hence they were generally dominated. We extended the Neu et al. (2006) study in various ways. First, their study showed that the informing technologies in the lending agreement enabled, regulated and translated the behaviour of the Colombians in the education sector. This conclusion was made after studying the national field. Our study segmented the national field into smaller fields, conceptualised the activities in each field as a game and investigated the impact of accounting on the daily activities of the Tongans. What we found was not entirely consistent with the findings of the Neu et al (2006) study. We found that the degree of enablement, regulation and translation of the informing technologies in the lending agreement were generally 27

associated with how the Indigenous understood accounting and embodied an accounting habitus. We used semi-structure interviews and documents review to collect our data. We initially identified those to be interviewed using our document reviews. We interviewed key players from each game (interaction between Tonga and the Bank) we investigated. The interviews assisted us in finding out about how the interviewees perceived their daily activities in their interactions with the Bank. The documents that we reviewed consisted of lending agreements between the Bank and several Government ministries and documents given to us by those interviewed. Our conclusion is that the apparent ambiguity evident in the literature on accounting and indigenous people can be explained through these notions of field and habitus. While work such as Preston (2006), Neu et al. (2006), Neu and Ocampo (2007) and Rahaman et al. (2004) describe the experience of groups or individuals who did not share a taken for granted accounting habitus and therefore were poorly placed to either defend their position within their field or to address the introduction of heteronomous accounting ideas around financial control, performance measurement and business-like practices. However, alternative findings such as Dyball et al. (2006) and Alawattage and Wickramasinghe (2007) describe situations where actors were either better equipped with accounting habitus or were better able to resist the introduction of heteronomous accounting ideas. We argue that notions of accounting as habitus provide a powerful way to describe and understand the hidden power of accounting. Our study has several weaknesses first we presented each case as a well defined game implying that the boundaries of the field for each game is clear and the players are all known. It is almost possible to keep up with the field and the movement of the players, the expansion and the reduction of the field. We arbitrarily drew boundaries to the games we analysed and focussed on players that were readily identifiable. For this we hope that our understanding of the field from the both inside and outside mitigated this short-coming. We propose that our study can be extended in several ways. While we investigated each game separately we are fully aware that players in each game might be playing multiple games simultaneously. A suggested direction for further study is an inquisition into how each game comes to bear on each other. Our study hinted that the winning of a particular game can elevate the winner into a higher position in another game. For example, the winning of the 28

Waka project accountant and his subsequent promotion to project accountant in a much bigger project. Another addition to our study is investigating similar games in other geographical locations. This is prompted by the understanding that another location may have different capitals, fields and rules and as such the result of games might be different.

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