Introduction

There are few books dedicated to the topic of offices of inspectors general (OIGs). In fact, a search on Amazon.com yields more results for Nikolai Gogol’s 1836 comedic play, The Inspector General, about corrupt public officials anticipating the arrival of a government inspector than books about OIGs. This satirical drama turned into a musical starring Danny Kaye, is more readily accessible to the public than scholarly works about OIGs despite the critical role they play in government accountability across all levels of government in the United States (U.S.). Why has very little been written about OIGs? Perhaps OIGs suffer from a public relations problem. Perhaps inspectors general (IGs) are too busy fulfilling their oversight responsibilities to share their stories, though several have done so (see, e.g., Neil Barofsky’s (2013) Bailout: How Washington Abandoned Mainstreet While Rescuing Wall Street; Bob Westbrooks’s (2023) Left Holding the Bag: A Watchdog’s Account of How Washington Fumbled Its COVID Test; and Glenn Fine’s (2024) Watchdogs: Inspectors General and the Battle for Honest and Accountable Government). Perhaps the academic world has overlooked their importance and not yet put the word out to the general public, albeit books on the topic worth exploring include those by Paul Light (2001), Carmen Apaza (2010), Nadia Hilliard (2017), Charles Johnson and Kathryn Newcomer (2019), and this author (Kempf, 2020). Regardless of the reason, the general lack of understanding about OIGs is a problem. Let me explain why.