制度问责化与问责制度化

制度是"秀才"和"兵"的结合。"秀才"是制度中的肯定性责任,它告诉人们"路在何方"。"兵"是制度中的否定性责任,它对误入歧途者进行问责。所有的制度,都需强化"兵"的存在,是"制度问责化"。"兵"也容易在情绪决策博弈中迷失方向。由此,需要设置更高位阶的制度,对位阶较低的"兵"予以监管,是"问责制度化"。要实现问责制度化,需在封闭原理的指引下,藉由制度中安排"兵","兵"上安排制度,层层递进,构成一个问责循环系统。从理论回归实践,人民问责权层面的制度、问责权层面的制度、管理权层面的制度,互相运作,形成了实践形态的问责循环系统。其中,只有诉诸制度建设和理性教育,促进管理权的常态监管和非常态监管,人民问责权作为问责循环系统的枢纽才能日趋牢固。     

Reputation and Accountability Relationships: Managing Accountability Expectations through Reputation

Accountability is said to be about the management of expectations. Empirical studies reveal considerable variation in organizational interest, intensity, and investment in accountability relationships. Less is known, however, about what explains these observed variations. Drawing on accountability and reputation‐concerned literatures, this article argues that a reputation‐based perspective on accountability offers an underlying logic that explains how account‐giving actors and account‐holding forums actually manage these expectations and how organizations make sense of and prioritize among accountability responsibilities. Reputational considerations act as a filtering mechanism of external demands and help account for variations in degrees of interest in, and intensity of, accountability. The resulting accountability outcomes are coproduced by the reputational investment of both account‐giver and account‐holder, resulting in distinct accountability constellations and outcomes.     

重新思考NGOs问责

NGOs问责的涵义可以从控制-交待、外部-内部、过程-机制三个不同的视角来理解。这就形塑了不同的NGOs问责型态,如等级问责和整体问责、功能问责和战略问责、外部控制和内部回应为基础的问责矩阵等等。这些问责型态不仅在理论上存在瑕疵,而且导致不合理的NGOs问责实践。可以根据问责的来源和问责关注的期限这两个维度建立一个整合的NGOs问责框架。该框架包含四种问责型态:效益问责、使命问责、结果问责和发展问责。这个新的理论框架进一步发展了NGOs问责的涵义,同时能够帮助利益相关者调整观察NGOs活动的关注点以提升NGOs的问责性,也有助于NGOs看清不同的问责力量,并判断怎样才能对自身的行为负责。研究的主要局限在于,提出的理论框架是一般意义上的,在实际应用中需要根据不同的NGOs类型及其运行的外部环境对框架的内容和侧重点进行调整。     

Delimiting Democratic Accountability

This article discusses the concept of accountability in relation to those holding public office in democratic states. It argues that the concept of accountability requires careful specification and that it is frequently distorted when put to the service of theoretical models and normative principles. The article develops a definition of accountability and a range of distinctions between forms of accountability, asks what forms of accountability might be appropriate to modern democratic systems and argues that some combinations of democracy and accountability can have serious negative consequences for politics. The article concludes by discussing the types of accountability that are pertinent to recent claims that international institutions should be made more democratically accountable. In each case, the common tendency to inflate the concept of accountability is associated with demands for accountability that threaten both democratic consolidation and the distinctive character of accountability itself.     

Contracting Out and Accountability

Governments are increasingly moving to contract out the provision of public services which have previously been delivered by public service departments. Contracting out typically implies provision by private sector contractors. However, it may also include in-house provision by public service departments or other public agencies where the right to provide is won through competitive tendering and is governed by contract. At the Commonwealth level, the trend has been given added impetus by the Coalition government elected in 1996 (Reith J 996; National Commission of Audit 1996).
The main rationale for contracting out is to improve efficiency in service provision by harnessing the virtues of competition, in particular the superior productivity engendered among competitive providers (Industry Commission (IC) 1996, B3.4; Appendix E). At the same time, there is a legitimate expectation that providers of public services paid for by public funds will be publicly accountable (IC 1996, BI). However, contracting out has the potential to reduce the extent of public accountability by transferring the provision of public services to members of the private sector who are generally not subject to the same accountability requirements as public officials. Indeed, reduction in such accountability requirements may be one of the reasons for the greater efficiency of the private sector.     

Promoting Accountability in Municipalities

Local government financial reporting reforms in Australia in the late 1980s and early 1990s were promoted on the basis of usefulness for decision making and for enhanced accountability purposes. Persistent criticisms of these reforms continue to be made, including those made by councillors and other ratepayers who often appear to find such information to be too narrow, too complex and often bewildering. A case is made for rethinking the present mentality, requirements and practices, especially with respect to the contrived recognition of ‘community assets’. Instead, an emphasis is placed on advancing broad‐scope accountability and meaningful financial reporting. To this end, the disclosure of a set of factual, reliable and interpretable indicators is proposed to enable a broader, more functional notion of accountability to be applied in Australian local government within prevailing social and organisational contexts. This contribution seeks to present a series of views, questions and proposals that are strictly concerned with ‘promoting accountability in municipalities’ (PAM).     

Reflections on Moral Accountability

As patron of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation(CSVR), I am both proud and excited that this organization hastaken the lead in initiating an international publication ontransitional justice in partnership with the Human Rights Centerat the University of California, Berkeley. By creating a spacefor dialogue and the sharing of knowledge and research, theInternational Journal of Transitional Justice will no doubtcontribute to the growth of the field of transitional justiceand to its ultimate     

Equity and Accountability: The Impact of State Accountability Systems on School Finance

Using an 11‐year panel data set containing information on revenues, expenditures, and demographics for every school district in the United States, we examine the effects of state‐adopted school accountability systems on the adequacy and equity of school resources. We find little relationship between state implementation of accountability systems and changes in school finance equity, though we do find evidence that states in which courts overturned the school finance system during the decade exhibited significant equity improvements. Additionally, while implementation of accountability per se does not appear linked to changes in resource adequacy, states that implemented strong accountability systems did experience improvements.     

公共决策中的责任机制

在我国社会转型过程中,传统政府形态发生了很大变化,正在实现由行政型政府向管理型政府转变;由管制型政府向服务型政府转变;由无限政府向有限政府转变。在此过程中,政府决策的范围和方式也发生了很大的变化。在传统全能政府时期,政府决策涵盖到社会生活、经济生活的各个领域,而在社会转型之后,政府则更加注重对社会公共事务的决策和管理。由此,政府决策的责任机制也发生了根本性转变。目前,我国应加快建立起公共决策的责任机制。     

Accountability in the Privatized State

As well as better efficiency and improved services, privatization has also often promised improved accountability. But how does the empirical evidence on this look and what are the lessons here? This article looks at the notion of accountability and the degree to which privatizing public sector activities might improve or worsen such mechanisms. It then looks specifically at the different systems of accountability existing following three privatization activities in Victoria and compares these against that existing previously under public operation. The sale of electricity sector enterprises, the operation of urban rail service franchises, and the implementation of a public–private partnership project to supply transport infrastructure are adopted as case studies. For each case study, accountability systems are articulated and the operation of these systems is discussed. Overall, the article analyses the effectiveness of accountability systems now operating in the privatized state from the perspective of stakeholders. Importantly, the degree to which trade‐offs may have been made under new accountability arrangements is also discussed. Finally, the article draws together some general lessons on accountability for future privatization activities and proposes a conceptual model for a pyramid of accountability.     

Social Identity and Electoral Accountability

In a laboratory experiment, we explore the effects of group identities on the principal‐agent relationship between voters and representatives. In an adverse selection framework with observable effort, voters can choose to condition their reelection choices on representatives' effort alone, beliefs about representatives' competence, or both of those jointly. We show that inducing social identities increases the weight of representatives' effort in voters' reelection decisions. Further, when voters and representatives share a social identity, representatives tend to invest less effort and their effort is independent of their competence. In contrast, “out‐group” representatives compensate for lower competence with higher effort and reduce effort when voters are likely to perceive them as competent. Voters often adopt laxer retention standards for representatives who are fellow group members and are responsive to evidence of other‐regardingness from out‐group representatives, but some voters actively resist treating representatives with shared identity more favorably and “overcorrect” as a consequence.     

The Processes of Public Accountability

There is a sameness to writing on public accountability which does not always do justice to the subject. With responsibility and accountability conflated and an idealised version of the Westminster model held up as the only test, ministers constantly appear irresponsible. Yet a more complex account of public accountability is possible, one which acknowledges that no single institution can undertake the important work of ensuring accountability from ministers, the parliament and public servants.     

NPO问责问题研究述评

近年来,我国NPO组织发展迅速,其对社会的影响力不断增大。同时NPO领域不断揭露出贪污、挪用慈善资金案件,因此对NPO问责问题进行研究显得十分重要。通过对近年来国内外研究NPO问责问题的文献进行总结和评述,在积累成果的同时发现现有研究的不足之处,以期为完善我国NPO管理体制和促进本行业的健康发展提供借鉴和参考。