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If we are to succeed in crafting appropriate solutions to prevent abuses of administrative discretion, we must pay serious attention to three major perspectives that shape the exercise of administrative authority: the perspective of lawmakers, who create at least four different kinds of discretion; the perspective of clients, who may suffer from one or more of five major forms of administrative abuse; and the perspective of practitioners, who are influenced in varying ways by the moral propensities of the work setting. The article concludes with a brief discussion and illustration of how these multiple perspectives need to be taken into account when devising solutions to prevent various abuses of administrative discretion.

Debates about globalization have centered on calls to improve accountability to limit abuses of power in world politics. How should we think about global accountability in the absence of global democracy? Who should hold whom to account and according to what standards? Thinking clearly about these questions requires recognizing a distinction, evident in theories of accountability at the nation-state level, between "participation" and "delegation" models of accountability. The distinction helps to explain why accountability is so problematic at the global level and to clarify alternative possibilities for pragmatic improvements in accountability mechanisms globally. We identify seven types of accountability mechanisms and consider their applicability to states, NGOs, multilateral organizations, multinational corporations, and transgovernmental networks. By disaggregating the problem in this way, we hope to identify opportunities for improving protections against abuses of power at the global level.