Suchergebnisse

This article examines how one particular state institution, state attorneys general (SAGs), has operated within a unique set of institutional and political constraints to create state-based regulation with nationwide impact in policy areas including consumer protection, antitrust, environmental regulation, and securities regulation. This state-based regulation casts doubt on one of the principle rationales advanced in the Supreme Court's anticommandeering line of cases for limiting federal power; namely, that judicially-enforced limits on federal power enhance electoral accountability, a concept central to our democracy. If in the absence of federal regulation narrowly accountable state-based actors from a small number of states can create nationwide regulation in a non-legislative fashion, accountability cannot continue to be a coherent justification for a revival of judicially-enforced federalism. While this critique of accountability is not an argument for untrammeled federal regulatory authority, it does call into question the empirical accuracy of the Court's assumptions about how state and federal institutions interact with each other to promote democratic and constitutional values. This article will proceed in five parts. Part I will briefly review the Supreme Court's federalism jurisprudence in the last fifteen years, focusing on the accountability rationale for limiting the power of the federal government. The next three parts will examine the political and institutional environment that permits SAGs to cooperate in regulatory litigation. Part II examines the state-based institutional constraints under which SAGs typically operate. While SAGs have much in common with each other, the variations in these structures between states will in part account for the actual way in which any given SAG regulatory scheme evolves. Part III draws on empirical work by political scientists to explore the ideas developed in Part II in the context of the tobacco litigation of the 1990's. Part III also begins the discussion ...

This article studies variation in individuals' perceived ability across India to hold local officials accountable for their performance. It finds significant gender differences in accountability perceptions, consistent with traditional social institutions. Exposure to progressive institutions of education and labor mobility is associated with the elimination and reversal of gender differences.

working to prosecute the perpetrators of genocide, remember its victims, and move forward is an enormous undertaking. after nearly 2 million trials in under a decade, rwanda provides an case study in local legal adaptation toward accountability.

How do public spaces generate accountability and advance social equity? Stimulating the conversation, this volume explores the creation of meaning, the increasing confrontation between regulators and the community they are purported to serve, and the prevalent conflicts in seeking a balancing of social and economic interests.

This volume brings together a collection of novel, conversation-analytic studies addressing the related concepts of account, motive, accounting, and accountability, with the goal of re-exposing their multiple senses, reiterating their interrelationships and, in doing so, breaking new conceptual ground and exposing pathways for future research

In contemporary public governance, leaders of public organizations are faced with multiple, and oftentimes conflictual, accountability claims. Drawing upon a survey of CEO's of agencies in seven countries, we explore whether and how conflictual accountability regimes relate to strategic behaviors by agency-CEO's and their political principals. The presence of conflictual accountability is experienced as a major challenge and is associated with important behavioral responses by those CEO's. This article demonstrates empirically how conflictual accountability is related to (a) controlling behaviors by principals, (b) constituency building behaviors by agencies, and (c) a general pattern of intensified contacts and information processing by both parties.

Although a growing number of NGOs are combining humanitarian and development activities, it was long the case that humanitarian action was isolated from discussions and practices in the world of development. The work of saving lives was deemed to be guided solely by the humanitarian principles, and discussions on accountability were rare. In the 1990s, humanitarian standards initiatives arose in recognition that humanitarian organisations were not accountable to affected populations. This article aims to take stock of accountability initiatives and practices in the sector. It builds on accountability theory in distinguishing upward, sideways, and downward accountability, and incorporates formal and informal forms of accountability. It is based on empirical research in Myanmar, Afghanistan, and Sierra Leone. The first part of the article outlines the history of accountability in the humanitarian sector, including an accountability timeline, and discusses current trends in performances around accountability towards displaced people, minorities, and other recipients of aid. It then presents the findings from the three countries. The article concludes by calling attention to the everyday politics of accountability, the widening accountability arena, the differential accountability demands on international and national aid providers, and the crucial importance of sideways accountability to bring accountability to a next level.

In contemporary public governance, leaders of public organizations are faced with multiple, and oftentimes conflictual, accountability claims. Drawing upon a survey of CEO's of agencies in seven countries, we explore whether and how conflictual accountability regimes relate to strategic behaviors by agency-CEO's and their political principals. The presence of conflictual accountability is experienced as a major challenge and is associated with important behavioral responses by those CEO's. This article demonstrates empirically how conflictual accountability is related to (a) controlling behaviors by principals, (b) constituency building behaviors by agencies, and (c) a general pattern of intensified contacts and information processing by both parties.

AbstractAccountability, Performance Reporting, Comprehensive Audit:
An Integrated Perspective, by Guy LeClerc, W. David Moynagh,
Jean‐Pierre Boisclair, and Hugh R. Hanson. Ottawa:
CCAF‐FCVI (Canadian Comprehensive Auditing Foundation‐
Fondation Canadienne pour la Verification Integral),
1996. 373 pp., $85.00 (Canadian, plus shipping) cloth.
Managing for Accountability: Preserving the Public Trust in
Public and Nonprofit Organizations, by Kevin P. Kearns. San
Francisco: Jossey‐Bass, 1996. 255 pp., $27.95 cloth.

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to describe and analyse the nature of accountability for human rights, as enacted by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC), in this time of globalization and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Design/methodology/approach: The authors focus on one case of alleged union-busting and unfair dismissal carried out under the cover of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tracing the action of that case, the authors show how the BHRRC provides a digital platform for dialogues of accountability. The authors use a Latourian theoretical perspective to guide the progress of the study's analysis. Findings: The authors find that the dialogues of accountability enacted on the BHRRC platform cannot be satisfactorily characterized in terms of an old politics of hegemony, counterhegemony and counter accounts. The authors find that the accountability enacted on the platform operates in three modes: in a political mode to support the formation of issues and publics and the embedding of norms; in an organizational mode to support the (re)organizing business corporations around scripts of respect for human rights; in a moral mode to keep scruples concerning means and ends and the pursuit of better outcomes, open. Originality/value: The paper is novel, in that it engages with the part that accounting can play in politics conceived in Latourian terms; in its introduction, a notion of modes of accountability on the foundations of Latour's exploration of modes of existence; in its challenge to the value of critical accounting conceived in terms of hegemony and counterhegemony.

AbstractDo the citizens have a role in constraining policies in autocratic governments? Usually the political and economic literature model autocracy as if the citizens have no role in constraining leader's behavior, but actually autocratic government are afraid of possible citizens' revolts. In this paper we focus on contemporary China to analyze how citizens might induce an autocratic government to adopt congruent policies. Although there is no party or electoral competition, the leader fears deposition by coup d'etat of the selectorate and revolutionary threats from citizens. We build a three player political agency model to study the role of both these constraints and we show that the effectiveness of the selectorate and of revolutionary threats are crucial factors in determining the policy outcomes. In particular, we show that the citizens can effectively discipline the leader because of the revolution threat notwithstanding the selectorate size, but this may result in a failed state when the costs of revolting and the selectorate size are small. As the size of the selectorate and the costs of revolution vary dramatically across countries, our result explain why different types of autocracies arise. In particular our model and results provide a useful framework to interpret China policy in the last twenty years.