Normalization of deviance among the governing elite

From A Prefabricated Tragedy by Matthew N. Esler. He is discussing the collapse of the Florida bridge, constructed with a faddish new approach, accelerated bridge construction, with claims about innovative self-cleaning features, etc.

What caught my eye was this observation.

What we can say is that when complex technological systems fail, usually no one single factor is to blame. In her study of the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster, the sociologist Diane Vaughan noted a phenomenon she called the normalization of deviance, an acceptance of assumptions and shortcuts that over time incrementally piles on risk until, like compounding interest on debt, a kind of technological bill suddenly becomes due.

The normalization of deviance is a human systems issue.

I wonder if the two tragedies in Florida in the past month (the Parkland Shooting and the FIU Bridge collapse) don't somehow relate to a broader issue in the populist insurrection against governing elites which we are seeing in all countries across the West.

Specifically, I wonder if the willingness of the governing elite to undertake risky projects and strategies, often absent robust evidence, which then exact negative consequences on the public, isn't part of the increasing willingness of the public to vote against the ruling elite. Immigration, trade, school discipline, gun control, climate change, etc. - all areas where the instincts of those who live with the consequences of actions are different from the views of the governing elite and their public intellectuals.

Despite all the repurposing of Parkland as a platform in the fruitless gun-control effort, it is now clear that the primary contributing elements to the tragedy were almost all local failures. Local FBI office failed to follow-up on repeated warnings of the intentions of the shooter. Local Sheriffs office failed to take action despite repeated contacts with the shooter. Local mental health departments frequently failed to address the circumstances. The school district shuttled the shooter from program-to-program. The police department failed to follow its own active shooter protocols, almost certainly at the cost of additional student deaths. All local failures.

Beyond the immediate tactical failures to act, there is an emerging pattern of normalization of deviance. What was behind these tactical failures? The Broward County Schools have adopted what might be called by citizens a studied normalization of deviance. The deviance is not in the goals but in the governing inclination to undertake initiatives which lack supporting evidence but which are for noble reasons. I.e. governance of emotionalism over evidence.

Endorsing and championing a federal effort to stop the school-to-prison-pipeline, the Broward County School District has dropped most efforts to enforce safety rules in order to reduce arrests of students for violent crimes. When the goal becomes avoiding exercising discipline on students breaking the rules, then the fact that the School and Sheriff's department lack of engagement with the shooter and his troubled behavior becomes much clearer.

But Broward County has gone a step further. They have reversed the pipeline under a different program in which they attempt to mainstream habitual youth criminals. Youth who are arrested for crimes having nothing to do with school. They have placed some 2,000 convicted youth criminals with records including robbery, rape and murder, back in to the school systems. This is done for rehabilitation purposes but on the thinnest of evidence that it works. For those with students in the schools where these criminal youth recidivism rates manifest, the consequences are real and local.

Similarly with the FIU bridge. While the claims were for safety, the emphasis from the university was on the novelty and innovation. Rumors about corruption, politically connected construction company, faddish techniques for attention, ballooning costs. We'll see. It will take another month before truths start coming out.

In the meantime, residents of Florida seem to have two case studies where preening governing elite are undertaking evidence free initiatives in which the risks all accrue to the citizens and the political kudos go to the government. The very definition of normalization of deviance.

From a different article on Vaughan.

Diane Vaughan is an American sociologist who devoted most of her time on topics as different as "Tension in private life" and "Deviance in organizations". She states, "I find that in common, routine nonconformity, mistake, misconduct, and disaster are systematically produced by the interconnection between environment, organizations, cognition, and choice. These patterns amplify what is known about social structure and have implications for theory, research, and policy". One of Vaughan's theories regarding misconduct within large organizations is the normalization of deviance.

[snip]

"Social normalization of deviance means that people within the organization become so much accustomed to a deviant behavior that they don't consider it as deviant, despite the fact that they far exceed their own rules for the elementary safety". People grow more accustomed to the deviant behavior the more it occurs. To people outside of the organization, the activities seem deviant; however, people within the organization do not recognize the deviance because it is seen as a normal occurrence. In hindsight, people within the organization realize that their seemingly normal behavior was deviant.

When decision makers are insulated against the negative consequences of their own decisions, then those suffering those consequences, in this instance the citizens, are likely to demand reform. The fact that governing authorities frequently undertake risky initiatives without robust evidence and do so for their own emotive and attention benefits makes the disparity between the governed and the governors ever more unacceptable.

And possibly that is what is happening in the US, the UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Italy, Germany, etc. The citizens are no longer willing to put up with the normalization of deviance among the governing elite.

Probably a stretch as an explanation, but I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't a contributing factor.