Non-Electoral Accountability in Global Politics: Strengthening Democratic Control within the Global Garment Industry

This article challenges the widespread view that democraticaccountability is unattainable in global politics because ofthe impracticality of establishing global elections. Instead,it argues that global democratic accountability can potentiallybe achieved by instituting non-electoral mechanisms that performequivalent accountability functions through more workable institutionalmeans. This argument is defended at a theoretical level, andfurther illustrated by analysing an empirical case study ofthe institutions through which labour standards in the globalgarment industry are determined. The article first explainswhy electoral mechanisms are no longer a viable means for achievingdemocratic accountability in political contexts such as theglobal garment industry, that are characterized by the decentralizeddispersion of public decision-making power among a range oforganizationally disparate state and non-state actors. It thenidentifies the key democratic function of electoral accountabilityas that of ensuring a reasonable degree of public control overpublic decision-making, and argues that this normative functioncan, in principle, be legitimately performed through non-electoralas well as electoral mechanisms. Finally, it elaborates thekey institutional features of a legitimate framework of non-electoralaccountability – public transparency and public disempowerment– and illustrates how these functions could potentiallybe achieved in practice, with reference to the example of theglobal garment industry.     

Transparency Mechanisms: Building Publicness into Public Services

Recent changes in patterns of public service provision, sometimes associated with the 'regulatory state', have been said to have eroded citizenship and diminished accountability. This paper responds to these challenges by outlining a toolbox of four transparency mechanisms – information, choice, representation, and voice – as alternative devices that can be built into the architecture of public service regimes, to increase responsiveness and answerability. Using insights drawn from cybernetics and transaction cost analysis, this paper looks at the consequences of different choices of combinations of mechanisms in allocating authority in line with competing administrative doctrines of fiduciary trusteeship and consumer sovereignty. Attention is drawn to differences in 'cost profiles' between different public services that can facilitate or inhibit consumer choice as a basis for understanding the suitability of different combinations of mechanisms to specific public services. A contingency model determining the suitability of particular mechanisms to particular services of different 'cost-profiles' is presented. Given the variety of public services and among different public service architectures in the regulatory state, it is argued that this differentiated approach to transparency and accountability provides a more effective response to holding public services accountable than narrower traditional notions of political accountability.     

Agency Accountability Strategies After Liberalization: Universal Service in the United Kingdom, France, and Sweden

Liberalization of key network industries is often said to reduce accountability by undermining its traditional mechanisms. Liberalization, others say, promotes accountability by creating new channels and mechanisms. This article suggests that neither view is sufficiently nuanced. Accountability comes in many forms, and the question is less "how much" accountability there is, but what form it takes. And accountability will take different forms in relation to different issues, even within the same organization. Examining accountability in relation to the provision of universal service in electricity and telecommunications, this article demonstrates that in the regimes studied, agencies were generally accountable for providing universal service by deferring, to the maximum possible extent, to political actors or stakeholders. However, when faced with an expert technical question—in this case, determining the costs of the universal service—agencies stressed their professional judgment and transparency. This observation supports a wider hypothesis concerning the conditions under which a variety of agency accountability strategies may be adopted.     

Third Way Regulation? Community Legal Service Partnerships

This article examines recent changes in the civil legal aid scheme in England and Wales (now called the Community Legal Service) and the creation of Community Legal Service Partnerships in particular. The article explores three main interests: it illustrates how third way thinking has been applied to the reform of the legal aid scheme under the Access to Justice Act 1999; it explores how partnership fits within theories of public regulation; and it illustrates how professionalism is being re-shaped by a combination of new public management, contractualism and partnership. It points to important limitations in new public law theories of extended accountability and democratised governance as manifested in partnerships.     

Accountability by design in technology research

What does research look like in practice? Aside from popular assumptions of how researchers are lonely isolated individuals sitting disconnected from the rest of the world enmeshed in thought, a considerable part of research involves working with data. Whether this data is quantitative, qualitative, gathered through experiments or involves writing code, all of this data is not just magically ‘invented’ out of thin air, but instead develops in a process of interaction with both human beings and technical systems. However only a small fragment of this process is presented to outside reviewers, the outputs and the framing often specifically designed to make a specific point. How the author got there, and which assumptions were made on the way and how these assumptions developed over time is seldom included in the final write-up. The following article argues that rather than just providing output data to be considered in research – or providing explanations for technical outcomes as is frequently proposed in computer science, accountability can only be developed by better understanding the research process. In order to do this, we suggest a series of mechanisms that can be built into existing research practices to make them more intelligible to outside reviewers and scholars. These mechanisms are designed to develop the accountability principle of the GDPR and ensure more accountable scientific research. As the GDPR recitals also explicitly references scientific research, an accountability by design approach to technology research is grounded both in the articles and recitals of the GDPR. By documenting the key elements of a narrative research story which explains not just what you believe to have discovered but also how researchers got there, it may also be possible to create better accountability mechanisms.     

Powers and Accountability of Private Police

Substantial growth in private policing has been documented in countries throughout the world, and the division of responsibilities for policing between public and private authorities has become increasingly blurred and contested during the last three decades. Because private policing is so frequently assessed on the basis of criteria established with respect to the public police, substantial myths have developed about the powers and accountability of private police; specifically, it is commonly asserted that private police have no significant power(s), and are essentially not accountable, in comparison with the public police. The author argues that such assertions misrepresent the very substantial coercive power of private police as well as the variety of mechanisms through which they may be held accountable, and also commonly exaggerate the effective accountability of the public police. The author concludes that a greater appreciation of the actual power and accountability of private police will provide an improved basis for the development of sound public policy with respect to both private and public policing, and with respect to appropriate relationships between private and public policing organisations.     

少年司法改革制度中的检察帮教责任机制探析

少年司法改革制度中检察帮教责任机制是一个重要的程序和制度。这一制度有别于公安机关和审判机关的帮教责任机制。少年司法改革制度的司法机关帮教责任实践同时表明,在对现有少年司法帮教制度中相关人民检察院在少年司法改革制度中的帮教责任依然存在模糊和漏洞,需要分析检察机关在少年司法中的帮教责任机制特点,提出相应的改进建议及启用策略,完善检察帮教责任机制。     

Criminal Justice Reform and the System’s Efficiency

This article discusses key issues that affect the efficiency and credibility of criminal justice systems. It discusses the consequences of an ineffective criminal justice system, which include unnecessary delays within the court process, ‘cracked’ or ‘collapsed’ trials, and lack of public confidence. It notes that a successful system must contain strategic, integrated, and sustainable mechanisms that enhance the entire criminal justice process. The article examines a number of initiatives taken by various countries, noting the measurable and sustainable results, while also suggesting ways that these programs could be improved. Finally, the author notes the importance of measuring the outcomes and impact of the suggested initiatives in an effort to promote transparency and accountability, as well as effectively record successful strategies.     

Holding (Quasi-)Autonomous EU Administrative Actors to Public Account

Abstract:  This article addresses problems of accountability in relation to two specific kinds of administrative actors in the EU system of multilevel governance, namely comitology committees and EU-level agencies. With regard to both sets of actors, the accountability issue is often framed in terms of delegation from a principal to an agent. This article explores the delegation of powers discourse and the question whether this framing adequately covers accountability forums and mechanisms that are emerging as a matter of legal and institutional practice. The latter sub-constitutional level is particularly relevant given the high degree of institutionalisation of both categories of administrative actors. Using these two categories of administrative actors as case studies, this article suggests that a delegation model of accountability in a democratic sense is not adequate and only captures part of emerging practice. A looser conceptual framing, understanding public accountability as a process in which power is checked and balanced by various actors, fits better within a more constitutional perspective on holding EU executive power to account.     

The Incoherence of the Unified Bar Concept: Generalizing from the Wisconsin Case

Many of the unified bars—public bodies to which all lawyers must belong and pay dues in order to practice—have been embroiled in legal and political disputes recently. Focusing on the history of the unified bar in Wisconsin, this article accounts for these disputes in terms of contradictions inherent in the very concept of a unified bar. Across a wide range of issues, the author argues, decision makers have been unsure whether to treat a unified bar as a public agency, a compulsory membership organization, or a private voluntary association, and thus unable to determine when public accountability, the protection of dissident members, or associational autonomy should be the dominant policy in unified bar affairs. The author concludes that disputes over questions of unified bar governance are unlikely to subside and that the unified bars should therefore be terminated in favor of a combination of private voluntary state bar associations and administrative agencies independent of the organized bar.     

Accountability and evidence-based approaches: theory and research for juvenile justice

As part of the ‘accountability movement’ in juvenile justice, policy-makers, funding agencies, and the general public have called for greater accountability from agencies and organizations involved with youthful offenders. Within this context, performance measurement and monitoring, and use of evidence-based programs and practices, have emerged as recommended aspects of juvenile justice system operations nationwide. Little is known empirically, however, about the actual performance of juvenile justice systems or the real changes brought by contemporary reforms, and theory and research on the implementation and sustainability of evidence-based approaches have been slow to emerge. This paper will review the key aspects of the modern accountability movement in juvenile justice, and then discuss a recently proposed theory that may be useful in future examinations of juvenile justice system improvement efforts. A suggested research agenda also is presented.     

Holding to Account a Possible European Public Prosecutor Supranational Governance and Accountability Across Diverse Legal Traditions

The Lisbon Treaty provides a legal basis for the Member States of the European Union (EU) to establish a European Public Prosecutor (EPP) with competence to prosecute, in the courts of the Member States, crimes against the financial interests of the Union. Article 86 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, provides that the Member States may unanimously, or through flexible cooperation where nine Member States agree, establish such a European-level prosecution body, with the possibility for its powers to be extended by unanimity to include serious crime having a cross border dimension or affecting more than one Member State. Within the legal traditions of the Member States, means of holding prosecution authorities to account vary considerably. Probably the strongest form of accountability exists in the civil law tradition of Member States that permit appeals to judicial bodies for decisions not to prosecute, which contrasts with the traditional common law reluctance to even give reasons for not prosecuting. Similarly, the ways in which prosecution authorities interact or overlap with police functions, and thus with general mechanisms of police and/or bureaucratic accountability, differ. Some of the particular features of EU cooperation suggest additional accountability issues, notably, questions concerning competence spill-over and problems of remoteness. This paper seeks to address how to conceptualise governance and accountability of a possible EPP outside of the context of a trial (the latter entailing a type of open legal accountability that can be studied in its own right) and including the question of the definition of competences.     

Analysing and Assessing Accountability: A Conceptual Framework1

Abstract: It has been argued that the EU suffers from serious accountability deficits. But how can we establish the existence of accountability deficits? This article tries to get to grips with the appealing but elusive concept of accountability by asking three types of questions. First a conceptual one: what exactly is meant by accountability? In this article the concept of accountability is used in a rather narrow sense: a relationship between an actor and a forum, in which the actor has an obligation to explain and to justify his or her conduct, the forum can pose questions and pass judgement, and the actor may face consequences. The second question is analytical: what types of accountability are involved? A series of dimensions of accountability are discerned that can be used to describe the various accountability relations and arrangements that can be found in the different domains of European governance. The third question is evaluative: how should we assess these accountability arrangements? The article provides three evaluative perspectives: a democratic, a constitutional and a learning perspective. Each of these perspectives may produce different types of accountability deficits.     

Police authority and reform in Augustan Rome and nineteenth-century England

This paper examines the police reforms of Augustan Rome and nineteenth-century England against the back-ground of the sociohistorical conditions within which they occurred. It reveals that the localism of reforms in Rome and the centralizing reforms of England were part and parcel of the traditional and modern societies from which they developed. Although this analysis offers few, if any, unequivocal historical lessons concerning the local autonomy and public accountability of modern law enforcement, it does reveal one of its basic dilemmas. Today's police work rests upon a legal rational system of social organization. It is, nevertheless, carried out within the exigencies of local communities of which it is though to be responsive. This dualism between universalistic and particularistic principles underlies current discussions of crime control and order maintenance. Attempts to dissolve this dilemma by focusing upon crime control or order maintenance to the exclusion of the other are inadequate inasmuch as the dilemma belongs to the very structure of society. Consequently, solutions such as external review boards and monitoring agencies or civilian monitoring organizations seem more appropriate as a means of maintaining the presence of universal norms while at the same time increasing levels of public accountability.     

论政府决策失误责任追究制

自改革开放以来,我国中央政府就一直强调要实现决策科学化与民主化。经过20多年来的努力,中央已基本实现由传统经验模式向现代科学模式的转变。但在地方各级政府决策中,失误的现象却屡禁不止,给国家和社会造成了巨大损失。造成这种现象的原因在于我国未能建立有效的决策失误责任追究制。     

Accountability in Governance: The Challenge of Implementing the Aarhus Convention in Eastern Europe and Central Asia

The signing of the 1998 UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention) radically extended international law on transparency and accountability in environmental governance. For the countries of Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA) that have now ratified, the Convention could prompt profound democratic changes. This article, based on the authors' experiences, analyses changing cultures of governance in EECCA countries. The first so-called pillar of access to information sets in place rights that directly contradict the fundamental secrecy of the former Soviet Union countries. Some officials' reluctance to share environmental information may also be linked to the economic duress of the current transition period, where information may be an official's only asset. The second pillar of public participation also poses difficulties for officials for whom the highest praise is to be considered a professional. In their belief that no one knows better than they do, they are reluctant to spend time and resources to make decision-making transparent and to involve the public. The third pillar of access to justice breaks new ground for post-socialist countries still developing their judicial systems. Though several highly sophisticated NGOs have been successful in using courts, it remains difficult for an ordinary EECCA citizen to bring an environment-related legal action. Changing these attitudes and practices will be a long and troublesome process. The Aarhus Convention will not be truly implemented until openness, transparency and accountability in environmental decision-making become everyday habits.     

The Pluralism of Global Administrative Law

As public power is increasingly exercised in structures of globalgovernance, principles of domestic law and politics are extendedto the global level, with serious repercussions for the structureof international law. Yet, as this article seeks to show forthe emerging global administrative law, this extension is oftenproblematic. Using administrative law mechanisms to enhancethe accountability of global regulation faces the problem offundamental contestation over the question of to whom globalgovernance should be accountable. National, international andcosmopolitan constituencies are competing for primacy, and thisresults in an often disorderly interplay of accountability mechanismsat different levels and in different regimes. This pluraliststructure, based on pragmatic accommodation rather than cleardecisions, strongly contrasts with the ideals of coherence andunity in modern constitutionalism and domestic administrativelaw. However, given the structure of global society, it is likelyto endure and it is also normatively preferable to alternative,constitutionalist approaches. It helps avoid the friction thatmay result from a federal-type distribution of powers and thepractical problems of a consociational order, and by denyingall constituencies primacy it reflects the legitimacy deficitsof each of them. Mirroring divergent views on the right scopeof the political order, it also respects everybody’s equalright to political participation. A pluralist global administrativelaw thus presents an alternative to problematic domestic modelsfor ensuring accountability in the circumstances of global governance.     

Accountability for the use of algorithms in a big data environment

ABSTRACT

Accountability is the ability to provide good reasons in order to explain and to justify actions, decisions and policies for a (hypothetical) forum of persons or organisations. Since decision-makers, both in the private and in the public sphere, increasingly rely on algorithms operating on Big Data for their decision-making, special mechanisms of accountability concerning the making and deployment of algorithms in that setting become gradually more urgent. In the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation, the importance of accountability and closely related concepts, such as transparency, as guiding protection principles, is emphasised. Yet, the accountability mechanisms inherent in the regulation cannot be appropriately applied to algorithms operating on Big Data and their societal impact. First, algorithms are complex. Second, algorithms often operate on a random group level, which may pose additional difficulties when interpreting and articulating the risks of algorithmic decision-making processes. In light of the possible significance of the impact on human beings, the complexities and the broader scope of algorithms in a big data setting call for accountability mechanisms that transcend the mechanisms that are now inherent in the regulation.     

Public Law and Popular Justice

Group litigation is becoming commonplace. Rules of standing have been relaxed to allow groups to bring representative actions on behalf of their members or to act 'in the public interest'. Groups increasingly intervene in actions between third parties, presenting amicus briefs. This article traces the origins of group action in courts and speculates on the possible effects of changes which blur traditional distinctions between legal and political process, concluding that the legal process must be kept broadly within traditional boundaries, if the qualities of independence, rationality and finality for which it is valued are to be maintained.     

Government procurement law and hacking technology: The role of public contracting in regulating an invisible market

This article considers the purchasing of hacking technology by governments and the role of government procurement processes in regulating the hacking market and reducing risks to the buyer. While the proliferation of hacking technology for government actors has led to various proposed solutions for accountability, little consideration has been given to public purchasing of this technology. This article explores whether public contracting processes could be used to help minimize the risks that arise from the use of government hacking technology, and, if so, the types of contractual clauses and institutional supports that might be useful to achieve that goal. In exploring this issue, this article considers theories of government by contract and the publicization of the private sector. These theories posit that public contracting can be used as a vehicle to impose public considerations—for example, certain policy goals—on the private sector. It argues that requirements of transparency and accountability that inhere on the public sector could be transferred in part to the private sector through the vehicle of a public contract and explores how public contracts for government hacking technology could be structured in order to reduce risks posed by the use of this technology.