Public Sector Management by Norman Flynn & Alberto Asquer

Author:Norman Flynn & Alberto Asquer [Flynn, Norman & Asquer, Alberto]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Public Policy, Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781473925182
Google: YeLajwEACAAJ
Goodreads: 33368883
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 1997-02-06T00:00:00+00:00

Accountability

Accountability is a fundamental concept in public administration which relates to the effective operation of democratic governance, the integrity of public officers and organisations, and the delivery of public sector performance. Accountability consists of the expectation that one may be asked, often by an authority or one’s superior, to justify one’s thoughts, beliefs or actions. In a more accurate term, accountability is a complex social relationship where public officers disclose information about their conduct and about the activity and performance of the organisation where they operate to an audience, either within the organisation or outside of it, possibly to the entire public. A typical form of accountability is the relationship between elected public officers on the one hand, and career or appointed public officers (top level bureaucrats) on the other one: the former is often entitled to require the latter to justify their conduct, either in terms of decisions that they make to execute policy instructions, or in terms of activities carried out, or in terms of performance attained by the organisations that they manage.

The analysis of the accountability relationship is mainly informed by principal–agent theory. Principal–agent theory explains how an actor (the ‘principal’) can induce another one (the ‘agent’) to behave in a way that is consistent with the objectives of the former. The principal and the agent do not share the same goals and the principal cannot observe the conduct of the agent. The principal, however, can monitor (at a cost) the performance of the agent and reward them for attaining better results. From the principal–agent theory perspective, accountability is an obligation of the agent to provide information that enables the principal to overcome the problem of keeping a recalcitrant agent under control.

The accountability relationship can be also analysed from other theoretical approaches. Bovens (2007) highlighted that accountability is a communicative interaction between an individual or an organisation that is held accountable and an audience (or ‘forum’) where individuals and organisations are expected to give an account of their behaviour. The forum evaluates and judges the conduct of the individuals or organisations. Accountability, in this perspective, is a dynamic social process rather than an obligation: the actor is expected to provide information in various forms (for example, oral accounts or performance indicators), which is then discussed within the forum (for example, through interviews or public hearings) and finally evaluated (together with some consideration for the consequences for the actor) (Brandsma and Schillemans, 2012).

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