Suchergebnisse

The author surveyed newspaper managing editors and municipal finance directors about the effect of newspaper coverage on the accountability of local government budget activities and policies. Using the survey findings, he argues that newspapers are selective about what constitutes news, and that while newspapers receive adequate information from public officials, many reporters and editors lack the training to understand and interpret complex budget activities and policies. A content analysis of newspapers supports the survey findings and presents additional evidence. The result is a weakening of any assessment by the press. Overall, the results challenge the commonly accepted argument that press publicity provides an effective external control over the competence, responsiveness, and accountability of public officials. The article suggests that budget officials can take steps to improve accuracy in reporting and accountability by taking a more active approach with the press.

This study aims to determine how the role of village officials in Cintamluya Village, Jatinangor District in the accountability of village fund management. Data collection techniques used in this study were interviews and documentation. The subjects of this study amounted to 7 people who are village officials in Cintmulya Village, namely the Village Head, Village Secretary, Village Treasurer, Head of Development, Head of General Affairs, Head of Government and Head of Dusun. This study uses a descriptive method with a qualitative approach. The results of the research conducted indicate that village officials in Cintamulya Village have played a role in the accountability of village fund management by carrying out their duties starting from the planning, implementation, administration, reporting, accountability

During the wave of constitutional reforms, which started in the late 1980s, Institutions of Direct Democracy (IDD) have been incorporated into most Latin American constitutions, and over the past fifteen years, an increased use of these instruments by Latin American governments has been observed. This article deals with two questions related to this phenomenon: (1) what motivated the adoption and use of these institutions; and (2) what consequences can be expected with regard to democratic accountability in the region?To answer these questions, first, a classification of IDD is developed. In this, special attention is paid to the ability of the various types of IDD to introduce accountability into the representative structures of presidential systems. This classification is subsequently applied to analyse constitutional frameworks and direct democratic experience in the region. The findings suggest that the rise of IDD in Latin America was mainly induced by executive‐legislative conflict and has done little to foster accountability. Finally, therefore, a detailed account of the specific constellation that led to the adoption of IDD in Bolivia is analysed in order to illustrate under which circumstances political actors choose to adopt and employ these tools.

In order to develop Asia-Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics (APCTP), it is necessary to respond various kind of accountabilities around research environment as well as research capacity and international reputation. APCTP, the case of this research, has achieved its goal through proper handling of managerial and institutional problems. Simplifying complicated program structure and enhancing efficiency in the managerial level and the stable position of secretary being able to excise practical authority in the institutional level have been based for the sustainable development. While the lack of legal support limited to enhance international reputation, bottomup building of APCTP and volunteer participations and efforts of researchers made good performance as a research platform considering its budget. The previous and present government's emphases on basic research and regional government's support took positive effects to the development of APCTP as international research institute and will provide real help for international reputation in the near future. This paper investigated difficulties around APCTP and their solutions for the sustainable development in terms of technical, managerial and institutional level regarding the open innovation aspect.

AbstractThe current fashion for decentralisation is built on the assumption that it will result in decisions that reflect local needs and priorities. Yet representative democracy, through periodic elections, is a crude mechanism for establishing these needs and priorities. Most local government systems offer few other opportunities for citizens to participate, particularly for the poor, and few mechanisms of accountability. This article reviews the literature relating local level decision‐making, citizen participation and accountability. It then presents the findings of a study of decision‐making about the use of resources in a sample of municipal governments in Kenya and Uganda. Local governments in Kenya have traditionally offered minimal scope for citizen participation or accountability, but this is beginning to change, mainly as a result of performance conditions applied through the recently introduced Local Authorities Transfer Fund (LATF), together with an increasingly active civil society. In Uganda, which has undergone a radical decentralisation, there is much greater scope for citizen participation at the local level but there are still many of the same problems of local accountability as in Kenya. The article reviews some of the examples of, and reasons for, good (and bad) practice. It concludes that factors like committed local leadership, central monitoring of performance, articulate civil society organisations and the availability of information are critical. But even with these, there is no guarantee that decentralised decision‐making will be inclusive of the poor. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

AbstractAudits of government entities offer a potential tool to hold public officials to account and to improve the functioning of public administration; however, empirical studies of audit impacts show mixed results. This is largely due to the diversity of audit regimes with different goals and accountability mechanisms, which yield different causal chains. In this study, I compare three distinct audit regimes with distinct casual mechanisms in Honduras. I find that backward‐looking audits, which aim to hold officials accountable for past behavior or performance, require effective horizontal accountability mechanisms to investigate and prosecute cases. Forward‐looking audits, which aim to hold officials accountable for future behavior or performance, require independent accountability mechanisms, a systematic follow‐up methodology, public dissemination, and pressure from the media and civil society. Complementary initiatives that build on audit recommended reforms are found to strengthen these weaknesses in the causal mechanism linking audits to outcomes.

The official mechanisms of intelligence oversight and accountability in the United Kingdom are arguably disjointed and ineffective. Thus, informal actors such as journalists, have played a more significant role. In addition, a rise of whistleblowers and leakers, such as Chelsea Manning, have highlighted the importance of online archives as an avenue for accountability. The United Kingdom is legally bound to place official documents on the public record at the National Archives. Sensitive material on intelligence and other security subjects majorly impedes the bulk release of documents. Inevitably, the inclination to 'weed' sensitive material from mundane documents has resulted in a costly declassification process. Evidence suggests that historians successfully investigated these subjects through the use of archives, despite the efforts of officials to obfuscate. This article argues that historians increasingly constitute the last forum of accountability and that routine declassification is an important, but neglected aspect of our machinery of intelligence oversight.

O artigo, ora apresentado, objetiva realizar uma discussão acerca das concepções do conceito de accountability em educação e, tomadas como parâmetro, faremos algumas incursões na direção das políticas da Educação Básica desenvolvidas em estados da Região Nordeste do Brasil, entre 1990 a 2018, envolvendo processos de avaliação e de accountability. As fontes que suportam este trabalho tratam-se de uma amostra constituida de oitenta e seis produções da literatura brasileira, no campo da educação, dentre artigos, teses e dissertações, como também toma como base informações sobre as políticas educacionais, coletadas a partir dos sítios das secretarias estaduais de educação e no Portal da Avaliação do Centro de Políticas Públicas e de Avaliação da Educação (CAED). A pertinência do tema desta investigação e o seu contributo para o Encontro está imbuído no aprofundamento teórico-conceitual do termo accountability, como forma de resistência ao discurso hegemônico, conservador e neoliberal, ao mesmo tempo que buscará explicitar modelo ou formas parcelares de accountability no âmbito das politicas estaduais da Educação Básica.

M. P. Singh and S. N. Mishra, Ethics, Probity and Accountability in Public Services. New Delhi: Indian Institute of Public Administration, 2017, xl + 425 pp., ₹450. ISBN: 9788186641947.