ACCOUNTABILITY

Accountability

Accountability

The concept of public accountability

Accountability is one of those golden concepts that no one can be against. It is increasingly used in political discourse and policy documents because it conveys an image of transparency and trustworthiness. However, its evocative powers make it also a very elusive concept because it can mean many different things to different people, as anyone studying accountability will soon discover. This paper nevertheless tries to develop an analytical framework for the empirical study of accountability arrangements in the public domain. It starts from a narrow, relational definition of accountability and distinguishes a number of indicators that can be used to identify and classify accountability arrangements. Furthermore, it develops three perspectives to assess and evaluate accountability arrangements in the public domain.

The emancipation of 'accountability' from its bookkeeping origins is therefore originally an Anglo-American phenomenon - if only because other languages, such as French, Portuguese, Spanish, German, Dutch, or Japanese, have no exact equivalent and do not (yet) distinguish semantically between 'responsibility' and 'accountability' (Mulgan 2000; Harlow 2002:14-15; Dubnick 2002).

Accountability as an icon

In the NPM ideology, public accountability is both an instrument and a goal. What started as an instrument to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of public governance, has gradually become a goal in itself. Nowadays, accountability has become a Good Thing, of which it seems we cannot have enough (Pollit 2003: 89). As a concept, however, 'accountability' is rather elusive. It has become a hurrah-word, like 'learning', 'responsibility', or 'solidarity', to which no one can object. It is one of those evocative political words that can be used to patch up a rambling argument, to evoke an image of trustworthiness, fidelity, and justice, or to hold critics at bay.

Broad and narrow accountability

In contemporary political and scholarly discourse 'accountability' often serves as an conceptual umbrella that covers various other distinct concepts. It is used as a synonym for many loosely defined political desiderata, such as transparency, equity, democracy, efficiency, responsiveness, responsibility, and integrity (Mulgan 2000b: 555; Behn 2001: 3-6; Dubnick 2002). The term 'has come to stand as a general term for any mechanism that makes powerful institutions responsive to their particular publics' (Mulgan 2003: 8).

Particularly in American scholarly and political discourse 'accountability' often is used interchangeably with 'good governance' or virtuous behaviour, as was already illustrated by the usage in the American bills. Accountability in this broad sense is a no-opposite concept, a concept 'without specified termination of boundaries' (Sartori 1970: 1042). For O'Connell (2005:86), for example, accountability is present when public services have a high quality, at a low cost and are performed in a courteous manner. Considine, an Australian scholar, squares accountability with responsiveness, but in the very broad sense of 'the appropriate exercise of a navigational competence: that is, the proper use of authority to range freely, across a multirelationship terrain in search of the most advantageous path to success' (Considine 2002: 22). Koppell (2005) distinguishes no less than five different dimensions of accountability - transparency, liability, controllability, responsibility, responsiveness ...