Promoting Public Service Integrity: A Case for Responsible Accountability

We discuss below difference between the concepts of accountability and responsibility, in the context of government administration. We argue that New Zealand's public sector reforms, in particular, have depended on an essentially mechanistic as distinct from an organic interpretation of public organisations. A mechanistic approach focuses disproportionately on notions of organisational accountability at the expense of responsibility, and as a consequence may prove counterproductive over the longer term in maintaining high standards of ethical probity. A concept of responsible accountability needs to be developed further as a means of countering this possibility. We speculate on whether the emphasis on contractualism has enhanced or undermined an integrity-based as opposed to a compliance-based ethics regime, and the possible implications of this for the maintenance of ethical standards.     

Public Accountability and Political Participation: Effects of a Face-to-Face Feedback Intervention on Voter Turnout of Public Housing Residents

Low turnout among the urban poor has implications for democratic representation. The fact that turnout among the economically disadvantaged is especially low in municipal elections means that citizens most in need of services provided at the local level may not be represented in policy decisions that affect their daily lives. This paper reports the results of an experiment that compares the effects of two voter mobilization interventions: traditional canvassing appeals and face-to-face exchanges in which canvassers distribute a feedback intervention consisting of printed records of individual voter histories. In contrast to previous studies, this experiment measures the effectiveness of using social pressure to mobilize turnout among relatively infrequent voters in a low salience election. The campaign was implemented by a credible tenant advocacy organization within the context of a municipal election; the sample consisted of registered voters in two Boston public housing developments. I find that the feedback intervention dramatically increased voter turnout. Turnout among those reached by canvassers with voter histories was approximately 15–18 percentage points higher than turnout in the control group, an effect that is approximately 10 percentage points larger in magnitude than that of standard face-to-face mobilization.     

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。     

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.     

An Ethic of Care: A Valuable Political Tool?

Since Gilligan first interpreted women's moral position as an ethic of care, feminists have wondered what this means for political action. While some view it as a way of introducing forms of understanding and appreciation which are missing in the public sphere, others have worried about the universalisation and romanticization of women's abilities which it appears to contain. This paper argues that interpretations of an ethic of care which are situated in resistance and which conceptualise its abilities as the skills of subordinated groups can hold out visions of group solidarity of benefit to politics.     

The Constitution and Accountability for Public Functions

In review of judicial interpretation of the United States Constitution set against the current reality of American governance, the authors conclude that traditional separation of powers doctrines hold few constraints for delegation of "public functions" beyond the boundaries of the three branches. As the result of constitutional permissiveness, the legislative and executive departments have increasingly lost out (or abdicated) to private and quasi-governmental institutions to conduct core government functions. Public accountability has been lost in this exchange. At a time of revolutionary change across Eastern Europe and elsewhere, when newly forming governments look to the United States for structural models, they are unlikely to be informed about the functional reality of American governance by either the written constitution or doctrines articulating the constitution.     

The Reputational Basis of Public Accountability

This article proposes a reputation‐based approach to account for two core puzzles of accountability. The first is the misfit between behavioral predictions of the hegemonic political science framework for talking about accountability, namely, principal–agent, and empirical findings. The second puzzle is the unrivaled popularity of accountability, given evidence that supposedly accountability‐enhancing measures often lead to opposite effects. A “reputation‐informed” theoretical approach to public accountability suggests that accountability is not about reducing informational asymmetries, containing “drift,” or ensuring that agents stay committed to the terms of their mandate. Accountability—in terms of both holding and giving—is about managing and cultivating one's reputation vis‐à‐vis different audiences. It is about being seen as a reputable actor in the eyes of one's audience(s), conveying the impression of competently performing one's (accountability) roles, thereby generating reputational benefits.     

Comparing Accountability in the Public and Private Sectors

Analysis of public accountability tends to concentrate on public sector institutions. However, increasing use of the private sector in the provision of public services suggests the need to compare accountability in the two sectors. While private sector (for-profit) companies are more accountable in terms of their 'bottom line', accountability requirements in the public sector are generally more stringent, particularly with regard to process and general policy.     

政治问责及相关概念辨析

基于问责的语义分析与学理阐释可知,作为机制的问责是指问责对象有义务就其行为、政策或职责表现等向问责主体告知、回答、解释与证明,如果问责对象存在失责行为则应接受问责主体的惩罚或制裁。政治以公共决策为重要内容,以行使公共权力为主要方式。在此意义上,可将狭义的政治问责界定为政治官员有义务就其在公共决策与推动公共政策执行中的行为与绩效,向社会公众、代议机关或执政党告知、回答、解释与证明,如果存在违法或不符合民意等失责行为,则应承担政治信任流失甚至公共决策权力丧失的后果。此外,政治问责与行政问责、民主问责、公共问责、社会问责等相关概念既有区别又存在交叉重叠,对其进行比较分析,有助于促进问责领域概念使用的规范化。     

Models of Political Accountability and Concepts of Australian Government

Models of political accountability are drawn from views about the nature of government. Too often, however, these views are flawed and/or not made explicit. In particular, the traditional model of government accountability - which will be outlined below - misunderstands the British 'parent' system of responsible government. One immediate task for those interested in accountability is to map the basic features of the Australian system (best understood as 'executive federalism') in order to provide foundations for new accountability models. As well as delaying the map drawing task, the dominance of the traditional account has also 'crowded out' other concepts of accountability. The 'efficiency' and 'democracy' approaches will be discussed below as basically complementary addition to the current Australian debate over accountability. It is thus argued here that a more eclectic approach drawing from diverse but longstanding strands in the public administration tradition can not only enrich the debate but also help to throw light on new public policy developments such as contracting out.     

The Effect of Political Competition on Democratic Accountability

Representing uncompetitive, homogeneous constituencies is increasingly the norm for American legislators. Extensive research has investigated how competition affects the way representatives respond to their constituents’ policy preferences. This paper explores competition’s effect on the other side of representation, how constituents respond to their legislators’ policy record. Combining multiple measures of state competitiveness with large-N survey data, I demonstrate that competition enhances democratic accountability. Voters in competitive states are more interested in politics, more aware of the policy positions their U.S. senators have taken, and more likely to hold them accountable for those positions at election time. Robustness checks show that these effects are not due to the intensity of campaigning in a state: general competition, not particular campaign activities, drives citizens’ response. The recent increase in uncompetitive constituencies has likely lessened the degree to which legislators are held accountable for their actions in office.     

Internal Control and Accountability in Non-profit Human Service Organisations

The welfare state regime operative in Australia is highly dependent on the non-profit human services sector. The sector, as an organisational field, has had a series of characteristics applied to it, which assume its superiority over government in many aspects of service delivery. Nevertheless, knowledge about the internal functioning of non-profits is poor. This article presents an initial exploration into one aspect of internal functioning, internal monitoring and control, suggesting that internal mechanisms for control are weak. As welfare state regimes in Europe and North America are restructured, different models of service financing and delivery are being imported into Australia. This article begins to sketch the organisational conditions onto which developing models are being applied, providing an initial base for informed commentary and evaluation.     

Love and Responsibility: a Political Ethic for Hannah Arendt

This paper argues that those critics of Hannah Arendt's thought who have protested at her disavowal of 'moral standards' as being appropriate in the judgment of political action have, in fact, misjudged the structure of her thought. My argument is, however, a constructive one: the paper seeks to demonstrate how Arendt arrives at her sweeping rejection of conventional standards of moral judgment, and what solution she proposes. I do this in three stages. First, I address Arendt's understanding of self as opposed to world : especially how the moral absolutes which may be claimed by the former may threaten the very structure of the latter. Second, I draw upon her model of action to discover the idea of a worldly ethics, one of principle . And third, I consider the fate of our goals when we act into the world, paying particular attention to the idea of responsibility and the on-going responsiveness to the world that belongs to action under a principle.     

Strategy and Accountability: Structural Reform Litigation and Public Management

Structural reform litigation involves legal action against public bureaucracies alleging that an official has violated the legal rights of an agency's client. A pattern of rights infringements raises the specter of systemic dysfunction. If the court finds for the plaintiffs, or if the defendant agency agrees to settle, the remedy reconstitutes agency operations. What are the incentives faced by public managers whose agencies are involved in structural reform litigation? How might public managers retain public accountability while strategically using the institutional arrangements present in such cases? This article examines these questions through a spatial bargaining model and discusses its analytical implications in the context of a comprehensive suit against the child welfare agency in Kansas City, Missouri.     

Accountability in Public Service Quasi‐markets: The Case of the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme

Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) represents the latest in a worldwide shift towards individualised funding models for the delivery of care services. However, market‐based models for care deliveries bring new considerations and dilemmas for accountability. Drawing on previous work by Dickinson et al. (2014), we examine a range of accountability dilemmas developing within the early implementation of the NDIS. These relate to accountability for the following: care outcomes, the spending of public money, care workers, and advocacy and market function. Examining these accountability dilemmas reveals differences in underpinning assumptions within the design and on‐going implementation of the NDIS, suggesting a plurality of logics within the scheme, which are in tension with one another. The contribution of this paper is to set out the accountability dilemmas, analyse them according to their underpinning logics, and present the NDIS as having potential to be a hybrid institution (Skelcher and Smith 2015). How these dilemmas will be settled is crucial to the implementation and ultimate operation of the scheme.