Mapping Responsibility Attribution in the Grenfell Tower Inquiry: A Network Analysis

TL;DR

This paper uses network analysis to systematically examine how responsibility is publicly attributed among participants in the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, revealing dense, patterned structures of blame within an institutional context.

Contribution

It introduces a novel network-analytic approach to map and analyze responsibility attribution in a formal public inquiry, highlighting structural features of blame organization.

Findings

Responsibility claims form a dense, interconnected network.

Blame attribution shows significant reciprocity and clustering.

Observed structures differ from neutral benchmark models.

Abstract

After major disasters, formal inquiries become arenas where responsibility is publicly contested. While extensive research has examined blame attribution through qualitative and actor-centred approaches, the relational structure of blame within formal accountability processes remains poorly understood. Using evidence from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, this study analyses the web of blame presented during the Phase 2 closing proceedings, in which Counsel to the Inquiry synthesised how core participants publicly attributed responsibility to one another. We represent this synthesis as a directed network and examine its structural properties using standard tools from network analysis. The resulting configuration is interconnected, with pronounced reciprocity and local clustering, indicating that responsibility claims were articulated within a dense institutional environment rather than as isolated, one-to-one accusations. Comparisons with neutral benchmark models show that several observed features depart from expectations based on simple structural constraints alone, revealing patterned organisation in the public articulation of blame within the Inquiry. By applying network-analytic methods to an institutionalised representation of blame attribution, this study provides a systematic structural account of responsibility relations in a major public inquiry. The findings contribute to research on crisis governance and blame avoidance by demonstrating how accountability processes generate patterned distributions of responsibility that reflect institutional arrangements and governance contexts.