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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.

Using historical and numerical analysis and the five‐part schema, this study finds that over the past 50 years structural modifications and adaptations by American cities have generally followed the standard S curve of the diffusion of innovation. In tests of Kaufman's and Hirshman's theories of epochs of change from representativeness to administrative efficiency, this study determines that mayor‐council cities have, in a standard innovation diffusion S curve, adopted many of the key features of council‐manager cities, increasing their administrative efficiency. At the same time, council‐manager cities, again in an S curve, have adopted many of the key features of mayor‐council cities, increasing their political responsiveness. Fewer cities are now either distinctly mayor‐council or council‐manager in form, and most cities are structurally less distinct, constituting a newly merged or hybrid model of local government—the type III city.