Public accountability

2009

ANU Press eBooks, 2017

Many in the Anglo-American world perceive a growing crisis in public accountability. They fear that privatisation and globalisation are breaking down the traditional accountability arrangements that give us confidence in our government-for example, by devolving important political authority and power to private actors who are able to operate outside the public accountability mechanisms designed for civil servants, or by shifting governmental powers and responsibilities on to transnational actors, both public and private, who operate outside the jurisdictional reach of domestically formulated accountability systems (see Drahos, Chapter 15; Tusikov, Chapter 20, this volume). All this leads to suspicion about whether the political forces affecting our lives are really acting in the interest of the public.

Journal of Advance Research in Business Management and Accounting (ISSN: 2456-3544), 2019

This research examined the question of accountability; new forms or a democratic deficit. The study examined specially examines the relationship between transparency and accountability, relationship between technocratic decision making and accountability and finally the relationship between proper coordination and accountability. The study is an exploratory study that used mainly secondary sources of information obtained from journals, text books and from the internet. The findings from the review shows that public accountability is important because it provides a democratic means to monitor and control government conduct, prevent the development of concentrations of power, and enhance the learning capacity and effectiveness of public administration. This is because rulers can be investigated and held to account for actions that transgress the law or result in personal enrichment or violate common mores. These tenets are lacking in our public institutions and in broader perspective ...

2013

Accountability is a politically saturated term that has gained much utilisation over the past thirty years. It is central to the neoliberal restructuring of public services, both rhetorically and in practice. Yet, for many accountability is an expression of holding those in power to account. Thus, accountability as a concept contains a duality of managerialist reforms and democratic control. The neoliberal age has seen the managerialist reform side of this duality to the fore, with democratic forms of accountability under attack. Among academics and practitioners this has led to questioning whether a renewal of democratic accountability is possible and if so how. This paper addresses these questions by looking at the history of accountability and in particular searching for an explanation of how democratic accountability relations were generated in the first place. This is achieved by firstly outlining the academic work on the history of accountability stretching back through the Middle Ages to ancient Athens. Secondly, an analysis of the struggle for accountable government, in 19 th century Britain, is developed that illustrates the role of working people in pursuing such accountability. Thus, at its core accountability is shown to be contested by competing social forces with working people and the labour movement playing a central role in the establishment of democratic, accountable government. The paper concludes with a discussion of the relevance of this history and analysis for studies of accountability in modern democratic societies.

Public Administration, 2008

West European Politics, 2010

This paper distinguishes between two main concepts of accountability: accountability as a virtue and accountability as a mechanism. In the former case, accountability is used primarily as a normative concept, as a set of standards for the evaluation of the behaviour of public actors. Accountability or, more precisely, being accountable, is seen as a positive quality in organisations or officials.

2011

It is generally believed that a democratic form of government rests on the foundation of accountability as government is held accountable to the people through ministerial responsibility. In this paper the notion of accountability has been critically examined and a case has been made that the notion is chameleon in character and is often not adequately understood by its users. It has been argued that accountability has gradually eroded as the new hybrid form of modern governance is based on complex network of relationships which in turn makes it difficult to determine who is accountable to whom and for what. It is concluded that there is a need for strengthening formal accountability institutions as lack of transparency plagues developing countries like Pakistan even more than the developed economies.

Journal of Education and Research

This Introduction to the Edward Elgar Handbook of Accounting, Accountability and Governance puts the collection of chapters making up the Handbook into context. The general philosophy of the Handbook is that accounting, accountability and governance go beyond being technical practices to be learned, adopted and repeated, and must be studied as social and moral practices. The chapters making up the five parts of the Handbook are outlined. Part I considers past and present perspectives on accounting, accountability and governance. Part II examines various mechanisms for accounting, accountability and governance, including audit, assurance and different forms of accounting. Part III considers accounting, accountability and governance in diverse contexts and sectors, including junior stock markets, emerging economies, higher education, the public sector, hybrid organizations and Islamic financial institutions. Part IV reviews some new perspectives on accounting, accountability and governance, including counter accounts and spotlight accounting, as well as the application of ideas of governmentality to accounting, accountability and governance. Part V considers some future directions and notes how the recent COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped accounting, accountability and governance relationships and mechanisms. The Introduction finishes with some indications of how the Handbook may be used in teaching and research. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS Accounting, accountability and governance are interrelated. Our statement above seeks to provide an appreciation of the fit of these three major elements of human life. Which of these elements started first? This question resembles the often-posed question in everyday life: "What came first-the chicken or the egg?" The rooster, however, barely gets a mention. According to Pilcher and Gilchrist (2019, p. 1), in their volume on accounting, accountability and governance in the public sector, "accounting is where it begins". We are not willing to make a claim of this kind. What is important for us in editing this volume for an international audience is to instigate, assemble and provide a range of examinations of how accounting, accountability and governance interrelate as the three sides of a triangle. Fundamentally, accounting performs accountability, accountability nurtures governance, governance presumes accounting. To elaborate on our one-sentence summary above, accounting is not just concerned with accountability, but accountability contributes to an understanding of the need for accounting in organizations and societies. On the other hand, governance is more than accounting can deliver alone but is designed to draw on accounting for governance to be enabled and sus