An Exocet in a Red Box: Parliamentary Accountability in the Sandline Affair

In the UK, it is commonly proposed that the accountability gap resulting from ministers' reluctance to accept responsibility for departmental failures could be closed by giving parliamentary select committees stronger investigative powers. In the Sandline affair the Foreign Affairs Committee sought to take on such a role, notwithstanding that a separate external inquiry was already under way. This paper compares the two mechanisms of accountability. It concludes that committees are poorly suited to investigate high‐profile administrative failures because they are too influenced by party politics. Independent inquiries are better for the purpose (though improvements are needed here too). A parliamentary resolution gave the inquiry primacy over the committee in the Sandline case. This may become an important precedent.     

2007波兰议会大选分析

2007年10月21日,波兰提前举行议会大选,共有9个政党或竞选联盟角逐众议院460个席位和参议院100个席位,其中4个政党或联盟得票率超过<选举法>规定的5%和8%进入议会.     

Parliamentary elites as a democratic thermometer: Estonia,Lithuania and Moldova compared

This article assesses how the character of emerging legislative elites conforms to the broader patterns of post-communist social transformation by comparing Estonia, Lithuania and Moldova. We argue that the pace and direction of change among MPs has been significantly shaped by the nature of regime change in each country. We first address the issue of pace and scope of elite replacement. Second, we examine whether and to what extent, over time, changes occurred in the parliamentary representation of major social categories (in particular, ethnic minorities, women, age groups). Third, we examine the dynamics of political professionalization.     

Explaining Less Accountability: the Growth of Local Quangos

There has been substantial growth in the number of non-elected public bodies – or quangos – operating at the local level. This development presents a marked change from the model of elected local authorities as the main focus for the governance and delivery of local public services. Four interpretations of this change are examined: agency-type, ideological control, managerial restructuring and regulationist explanations. Agency-type explanations recognize a plurality of factors, but lack theoretical or predictive rigour. Ideological and managerial explanations have a stronger theoretical basis but fail to recognize the wider structural context. Regulationist explanations offer, but also suffer from the problems of, structuralist analysis. An integrating framework is developed. Three phases in the development of local quangos are presented as a process by which government has resolved tensions in the British state. A consequence, however, has been to raise questions about the state's longer term legitimacy.     

Public Accountability in Malaysia: Challenges and Critical Concerns

Despite its laudable roles in steering the process of socioeconomic development, government bureaucracy in Malaysia has not escaped public criticisms for its inefficiency, corruption, and failure to guard public interests. The media, civil society groups, intelligentsia, and the political opposition have successfully utilized the major scandals to highlight the growing public concern over the poor performance of the bureaucracy and its lack of accountability and responsiveness. This has provided impetus for the “clean and efficient government” movement initiated in the early 1980s and a series of subsequent efforts aimed at promoting appropriate values and ethics among public officials. Numerous rules and regulations have been framed, major reforms have been introduced in various spheres of administration, and an extensive program of training and bureaucratic reorientation has been undertaken. Despite all this, recent evidence suggests that the public service continues to suffer from problems of corruption and other irregularities. Obviously, the performance of numerous reforms in public service and the institutional mechanisms put in place for tackling ethical problems, though positive in general, has fallen short of expectations. This paper seeks to examine and analyze the present approach to combating corruption and promoting accountability in the Malaysian public service. In particular, it focuses on institutional mechanisms currently available and identifies and analyzes their constraints and limitations in keeping the public bureaucracy under surveillance and control.     

The Vehicle and General Affair: Some Reflections for Public Administration in Britain

This article is bared on a lecture given in December 1972 to the Northern Regional Group of the RIPA. Dr. Chapman is Reader in Politics, University of Durham.     

Audit Committees and Accountability in Local Government: A National Survey

Abstract

Financial scandals in city governments have received increased publicity in recent years. Audit committees have been suggested as a way review and improve standards and procedures for financial accountability. Audit committees assist local government managers in overseeing and monitoring the financial accounting and auditing process. They provide a communication link between elected officials, municipal managers, and independent auditors. This study relies on national survey data to examine the prevalence, role, and composition of audit committees in cities with populations over 65,000 and the conditions affecting their use and effectiveness. Interviews and a brief case study supplement survey data to provide richer detail regarding the performance of audit committees in ensuring improved accountability.     

Explaining Governance of the Judiciary in Central and Eastern Europe: External Incentives,Transnational Elites and Parliamentary Inaction

What made democratic politicians in Central and Eastern Europe exclude themselves from governance of the judiciary? Institutional change in the judiciary is investigated through a diachronic study of the Romanian judiciary which reveals a complex causal nexus. The classical model of the ‘external incentives’ of EU accession, while explaining a general drive toward revision, played an otherwise marginal role. An institutional template prevailed, promoted by an elite transnational community of legal professionals whose entrepreneurs steering the revision of governance of the judiciary after 1989. The parliamentarians, disempowered by this revision, offered no resistance—a ‘veto-player dormancy’ that stands revealed as pre-conditional to such transnational influences.     

Collaboration Processes and Institutional Structure: Reexamining the Black Box

Building on previous models of collaboration processes, this article expands and revises the antecedent-process-outcome framework used to explain collaboration. The article discusses why this framework needs to be expanded to include the element of institutional structure. We propose a modified framework to explain collaboration that includes a typology of citizen-based, agency-based, and mixed partnerships. Furthermore, the article draws from the expansive body of literature on watershed collaboration to propose additional antecedents that influence institutional structures and, in turn, alter the process patterns in the collaboration “black box.”     

Records Management: A Key Element for Effectiveness,Accountability and Development in the Greek Public Administration

Records management is a fundamental activity of public administration. Public records are a crucial component of the most human actions. They form the basis of any political and legal system and secure human rights. Records Management Systems provide information for planning and decision making, promote the government accountability, improve servicing citizens and ensure the organizations' enactments legitimacy. This article presents and evaluates the records management practices of the core Greek Public Administration by conducting a survey concerning the Greek Ministries and trying to find out in what level the records management initiatives are embedded in the business culture and applied by the Greek Public Agencies.     

左翼溃败右翼独大——2010年匈牙利议会大选初析

2010年4月11日、25日,匈牙利举行了东欧剧变后第六次议会大选的两轮投票。青民盟和基民党组成的竞选联盟在第一轮选举中即大获全胜,得票率为539／,前执政党社会党惨败,得票率仅为19％,极右政党“为了更好的匈牙利运动（简称尤比克党）得票率为17％,     

2006年匈牙利、捷克、斯洛伐克议会选举与左翼政党的发展

在2006年议会选举中,匈牙利和捷克延续了以往的左翼政党格局,斯洛伐克的政党格局则发生了很大变化;同时,三国左翼政党或胜或输,表现出不同的起落轨迹.左翼政党格局和地位的变化与其所在国家的政治发展、经济形势、对外关系乃至各党自身的条件和努力密切相关.     

The Contingencies of Societal Accountability: Examining the Link Between Civil Society and Good Government

Corruption interferes with and distorts the processes of political decision making and implementation, often to the disadvantage of the already disadvantaged. Yet our understanding of the factors that might propel a political system from lower to higher levels of probity remains speculative. This article examines the role of one category of actors often touted as an important countervailing force to political power: civil society. Existing case study research provides evidence that civil society can play a decisive role in holding public officials accountable, but that the success of such societal accountability is contingent upon a number of favorable contextual and institutional conditions. The analyses presented here use panel country data to examine whether the strength of civil society affects corruption. The results corroborate the findings of existing case studies; a vibrant civil society mitigates corruption but only provided that conditions such as political competition, press freedom, and government transparency exist in the country.