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In recent decades, we have seen an explosion in expectations for greater accountability of public policymaking. But, as accountability has increased, trust in governments and politicians has fallen. By focusing on the heart of public accountability-the reason-giving by policymakers for their policy decisions (i.e., deliberative accountability)-this work offers an empirical route for understanding why more accountability may not always deliver more public trust. The focus is on the British Parliament, where both the Treasury Select Committee and the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee hold hearings on monetary policy, financial stability, and fiscal policy. The intent in these hearings is to challenge policymakers to explain their decisions, and thus the dialogue is expected to be deliberative. But how do we judge the quality of this deliberative accountability? Three metrics are explored and measured: respect, non-partisanship, and reciprocity. The approach is multi-method, including (1) quantitative text analysis to gauge the verbatim transcripts in committee hearings; (2) qualitative coding combined with an experimental design to gauge the role of nonverbal communication in the hearings; and (3) interviews with the MPs, peers, central bankers, and Treasury officials who participated in the hearings. The first method measures the content of 'what' was said, the second examines 'how' the words and arguments were expressed, and the third provides a more reflective 'why' component by asking participants to explain their motivations. This merging of the 'what', the 'how', and the 'why' offers a novel template for studying both accountability and deliberation.

American monetary policy is formulated by the Federal Reserve and overseen by Congress. Both policy making and oversight are deliberative processes, although the effect of this deliberation has been difficult to quantify. In this book, Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey provides a systematic examination of deliberation on monetary policy from 1976 to 2008 by the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee (FOMC) and House and Senate banking committees. Her innovative account employs automated textual analysis software to study the verbatim transcripts of FOMC meetings and congressional hearings; these empirical data are supplemented and supported by in-depth interviews with participants in these deliberations. The automated textual analysis measures the characteristic words, phrases, and arguments of committee members; the interviews offer a way to gauge the extent to which the empirical findings accord with the participants' personal experiences. Analyzing why and under what conditions deliberation matters for monetary policy, the author identifies several strategies of persuasion used by FOMC members, including Paul Volcker's emphasis on policy credibility and efforts to influence economic expectations. Members of Congress, however, constrained by political considerations, show a relative passivity on the details of monetary policy.

In parliamentary committee oversight hearings on fiscal policy, monetary policy, and financial stability, where verbal deliberation is the focus, nonverbal communication may be crucial in the acceptance or rejection of arguments proffered by policymakers. Systematic qualitative coding of these hearings in the 2010–15 U.K. Parliament finds the following: (1) facial expressions, particularly in the form of anger and contempt, are more prevalent in fiscal policy hearings, where backbench parliamentarians hold frontbench parliamentarians to account, than in monetary policy or financial stability hearings, where the witnesses being held to account are unelected policy experts; (2) comparing committees across chambers, hearings in the House of Lords committee yield more reassuring facial expressions relative to hearings in the House of Commons committee, suggesting a more relaxed and less adversarial context in the former; and (3) central bank witnesses appearing before both the Lords and Commons committees tend toward expressions of appeasement, suggesting a willingness to defer to Parliament.

Automated content analysis is employed to measure the dimensionality of Senate debates on the 2003 Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and compare these results with the final vote. The underlying verbal conflict leading up to the final roll-call vote contains two important dimensions: (1) an emotive battle over the abortion procedure itself, and (2) the battle over the constitutionality of the bill. Surprisingly, senators appear not to have voted along the first dimension of the verbal conflict, but rather along the second dimension. The analysis of the deliberations of senators not only enables us to understand the complexity of the arguments that is not captured in the vote, but it also uncovers (and measures empirically) the strategies employed by legislators to shape the relevant lines of conflict, and ultimately, the final content of the bill.

Automated content analysis is employed to measure the dimensionality of Senate debates on the 2003 Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and compare these results with the final vote. The underlying verbal conflict leading up to the final roll-call vote contains two important dimensions: (1) an emotive battle over the abortion procedure itself, and (2) the battle over the constitutionality of the bill. Surprisingly, senators appear not to have voted along the first dimension of the verbal conflict, but rather along the second dimension. The analysis of the deliberations of senators not only enables us to understand the complexity of the arguments that is not captured in the vote, but it also uncovers (and measures empirically) the strategies employed by legislators to shape the relevant lines of conflict, and ultimately, the final content of the bill. (British Journal of Political Science / FUB)

On Sunday, October 10th, 2004, the New York Times
Magazine featured an article with the cover title,
"Really, What Does He Think? John Kerry and the
Post-9/11 World" (Bai 2004). On the cover
of the magazine was a serious-looking photo of Senator Kerry,
superimposed with keywords such as "Terrorism," "Iraq," "Al Qaeda,"
"Multilateralism," "Nuclear proliferation," and so on. While the
article itself was intriguing, even more intriguing was the
magazine's attempt to capture Kerry's core ideas on American
national security with the use of keyword graphics—namely, the
keywords on the cover, placed in what appeared to be a random order
around the photo of Kerry, and the underlining of "John Kerry,"
"terrorism," and "Americans" in the inside title. Catchy graphics,
but hardly an accurate depiction of the keywords that might actually
represent Kerry's thinking on American national security. And, for
all the comparison made in the article itself with President Bush's
stance on national security, where were the graphics for George W.?
(They did not emerge in the next New York Times
Magazine.) The magazine was, nonetheless, making an
important point: that words (and the ideas they represent) are
emotive—particularly in the highly charged climate of the 2004
presidential campaign. I am grateful
for comments and suggestions from Andrew Bailey, Diane Maurice,
David Mayhew, and Frances Rosenbluth. I am also grateful to the
Georg Walter Leitner Program in International and Comparative
Political Economy (Yale Center for International and Area
Studies) for funding that initiated this article, and to Mina
Moshkeri (LSE Design Unit) for her assistance in preparing the
graphs.