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Professor Flinders makes a strong case that our obsession with accountability has turned "problematic" and even "pathological". While agreeing with the gist of the argument, I contend that the essence of the problem is more ontological than political. What we require is a radical "reframing" that highlights the pervasive role accountability relationships play in governance— that is, an approach that would shift attention to the alteration of ongoing governance arrangements and relationships that occurs with each reformist effort to "enhance" or "improve" accountability. Governance takes place within accountability spaces, and we need to give priority to research that maps that space as a first step toward understanding the nature and potential of accountable governance.

An introduction notes that a teacher symposium, "Nurturing Civic Lives: Developmental Perspectives on Civic Education," is a byproduct of an American Political Science Assoc Task Force on Civic Education project to forge working linkages among political scientists & developmental psychologists for the purpose of enhancing the quality & effectiveness of civic education. The history of civic education in America is traced from its roots in a "traditionalist" educational philosophy, through the rise of a developmentalist philosophy of progressivist education that rejected civic education, & finally to the emergence of a civic development perspective that is a response to both a renewed traditionalist movement in education & a growing awareness of the poor state of current civic life. The impact of Lawrence Kohlberg's (1968) moral development approach is discussed, along with the value of cross-disciplinary perspectives, & the growing volume of research on youth civic development. A brief synopsis of each contribution is included. 25 References. J. Lindroth

Using the concepts of thick & thin relationships as the basis for ethical behavior, this paper critiques the emphasis on discretion in the mainstream administrative ethics literature & argues that moral & other dilemmas facing public administrators provide a more useful frame. Two examples drawn from the UK Hutton Investigation into the death of David Kelly are used to demonstrate the relevance & usefulness of this approach. Figures, References. Adapted from the source document.

Ordinarily research articles on public sector third-party governance, or the state of agents, turn to the subject of accountability in their conclusions. Rather than leaving it to the conclusions, this article takes up the subject of public sector third-party governance as a problem of accountability. To consider accountability, we studied contemporary performance measurement practices in the federal government, particularly as they are applied in five agencies of the US Department of Health and Human Services. Our findings are presented using a six-part "promises of accountability" heuristic which captured the many and varied uses of accountability in contemporary policy and administration discourse. We found that the characteristics of third parties and the nature of their principal-agent relations are a key determinant of accountability; bureaucratic and hierarchical controls enhance agency and program accountability; building rules and program policies into grants and contracts enhance accountability; agencies that practice lateral trust-based forms of "relational contracting" foster cultures of accountability; auditing and reporting requirements enhance program accountability; federal performance measurement regimes tend to be "top down" and "one size fits all;" federal performance measurement regimes are primarily executive branch forms of accountability; performance measurement often represents attempts to superimpose managerial logic and managerial process on inherently political processes embedded in the separation of powers; there is little evidence that performance-based accountability results in enhancing democratic outcomes or greater justice or equity. Adapted from the source document.