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Problems of Democratic Accountability in Network and Multi-Level Governance
Abstract
Most studies converge on the growth of processes of 'multilevel governance' (MLG) in policy making, related to the often combined trends towards supranationalism and regionalism. Such processes are usually analysed under the angle of their efficiency, while their impact on the quality of democracy is neglected. This article first defines the concepts of multilevel governance and accountability, and then identifies the various dimensions of the latter. It further argues that MLG generates novel forms of accountability, but undermines its democratic dimension mainly for the following reasons: the weak visibility of MLG networks, their selective composition and the prevalence of peer over public forms of accountability.
... The second approach is sociopolitical and related to policy-making and governance. Networks are webs of collaboration, communication and interaction between diverse social actors, useful in understanding how power, roles and interest groups constantly influence policymaking (Booher & Innes, 2002;Healey, 2007;Papadopoulos, 2007). The organisation of formal and informal planning and policy communities is a central concern, as well as how informal interactions shape policy outcomes and transcend territorial policy boundaries (Albrechts & Mandelbaum, 2005). ...
... Self-organised and shared modes of governance raise difficulties related to accountability and the legitimacy of the actors involved (Stoker, 1998) since the responsibility for action is spread over a large number of public and private actors (Kooiman, 1993: 252). Issues over accountability could be internal (peer accountability) among the members of the planning subsystem that need to answer to each other for their action or lack of action (Papadopoulos, 2007), or external among those excluded from the group that ultimately will be affected by the policy 106 outcomes (Stoker, 1998). For Papadopoulos (2007), accountability issues in shared and multilevel governance arrangements are related to the lack of visibility of these networks, which are often informal or are not recognised by all of the stakeholders affected by the policies. ...
... Issues over accountability could be internal (peer accountability) among the members of the planning subsystem that need to answer to each other for their action or lack of action (Papadopoulos, 2007), or external among those excluded from the group that ultimately will be affected by the policy 106 outcomes (Stoker, 1998). For Papadopoulos (2007), accountability issues in shared and multilevel governance arrangements are related to the lack of visibility of these networks, which are often informal or are not recognised by all of the stakeholders affected by the policies. Also, in multi-level governance, the lack of clear lines of communication (Haynes, 2003: 33), along with the shared operational responsibility across different higher and lower level government agencies, and private and social organisations (Sorensen & Torfing, 2009) can create a gap in responsibility and answerability. ...
This research explores the dynamic interplay between self-organised tourism planning and formal, linear and institutionalised tourism governance structures in the Santa Elena province, Ecuador. Complexity theory provides a framework and a language to understand actor-led, non-linear, bottom-up, and highly contextualised self-organised planning efforts that can change the future of tourism destinations amidst unstable and changing tourism governance conditions.
... Las redes incluyen a actores del sector público y privado trabajando juntos en la provisión de servicios (Carboni y Milward, 2012). Identificar quién es el responsable y su contabilización es difícil (Curtin et al., 2010;Papadopoulos, 2007). Esto implica una redistribución de responsabilidades para el logro de los objetivos (Grossi y Mussari, 2008) y posee los problemas de medir la performance y de la divulgación de información. ...
... Algunos argumentan que, cuantas más organizaciones están involucradas en el mismo proceso y la responsabilidad es compartida, el conjunto de la accountability aumenta, pero la accountability democrática se debilita (Curtin et al., 2010;Papadopoulos, 2007). ...
La literatura ha indagado sobre la accountability (siendo una de sus dimensiones la cantidad y calidad de la divulgación de información financiera o fiscal en internet por parte de los gobiernos locales) y sobre sus determinantes en el marco de la teoría de agencia. Uno de los determinantes puede ser el nivel de outsourcing/tercerización, influenciado por las ideas del New Public Management (NPM), y otro, el nivel tecnológico. Para el caso de los gobiernos locales argentinos existen escasas investigaciones sobre dichas cuestiones. El presente trabajo realiza relevamientos de la divulgación de la información financiera de los 135 gobiernos locales de la Provincia de Buenos Aires de la República Argentina a través de internet (periodo 2013-2021) e identifica los posibles determinantes que influyen en la divulgación para tales ejercicios, haciendo foco en el outsourcing y en la tecnología (incrementada durante los años de pandemia). La metodología utilizada, a los fines de aportar evidencia empírica a favor de las hipótesis planteadas, fue el planteo de modelos de regresiones lineales y logísticas múltiples para datos de panel, a través de los cuales se relacionó la variable divulgación de información financiera en internet con el outsourcing, teniendo en cuenta el impacto en lo tecnológico durante los años de pandemia. También se analizó la relación del outsourcing con variables como gastos de capital, deuda, déficit, variación de la inflación y dólar para conocer mejor su comportamiento. Los resultados muestran que la divulgación de información financiera de los gobiernos locales bonaerenses ha sufrido una variación significativa entre los periodos 2013 y 2021, alcanzando solo un 46,67% y un 71,85% respectivamente, con una aceleración durante los años de pandemia. Por otro lado, se ha encontrado evidencia a favor de que el nivel de outsourcing se relaciona negativamente con la divulgación por parte de los gobiernos locales.
... En anden kritik lyder, at samskabelsesprocesser kan skabe problemer med ansvarlighed, når magt deles med aktører, der ikke formelt har ledelsesansvar. Et vaesentligt dilemma er, at ledere, som fx inviterer medarbejdere til at deltage i samskabt styring, i sidste ende stadig er dem, der står til ansvar, hvis ikke styringen fungerer (Papadopoulos, 2007). Det kan skabe uklarheder i samskabelsesprocessen for både formelt ansvarlige ledere og deltagende aktører uden formel magt. ...
... I praksis er der sådan set enighed om, at det i det aktuelle forløb ikke har vaeret et problem, men ikke desto mindre er det altså et dilemma, som bekymrer flere centrale aktører -også i forhold til fremtidige forløb med samskabt styring. En (potentiel) udfordring, som også genfindes i litteraturen (Papadopoulos, 2007), er altså, hvordan aktører med formel magt sikrer ansvarlig kontrol, når magten deles blandt multiple aktører. ...
Samskabelse er kommet på dagsordenen som en strategi til at løse ikke blot komplekse samfundsproblemer, men også genstridige styringsproblemer i den offentlige sektor. I denne artikel udvikles en teoretisk ramme for samskabt styring, som bruges som afsæt til at analysere potentialer og udfordringer ved at samskabe et pædagogisk tilsynskoncept i Roskilde Kommune. Resultaterne viser, at samskabt styring bidrager til ejerskab til og motivation for at arbejde med tilsynet samt til en oplevelse af, at tilsynet understøtter kvaliteten og effektiviteten i opgaveløsningen. Derudover styrker processen samarbejdskulturen i organisationen. Resultaterne viser dog også, at samskabt styring kræver ressourcer, omfattende facililtering, opbakning i ledelseskæden og kan skabe ledelsesdilemmaer og bekymringer om ansvarlighed, når magten deles. Derudover kan risikoen for dekobling af relevante aktører opstå i højkomplekse samskabelsesprocesser.
... Even when a genuine effort toward inclusion is made, it can be difficult for a government agency or collaborative group to identify all relevant actors in complex problem settings, especially when the causes and effects of a problem are disconnected (Samuelson et al., 2005). While processes with few restrictions on participation could potentially enhance recognitional equity (Leach, 2006), the often exclusive or ad hoc nature of who actually participates, coupled with a tendency toward informality in collaboratives, may simultaneously undermine equity goals, raising fundamental concerns over the democratic legitimacy of collaborative governance (Papadopoulos, 2007). Recent research demonstrates that it is often marginalized communities and resource-poor organizations who are not engaged in collaborative processes, resulting in lower levels of participation (Angst et al., 2022;Dobbin & Lubell, 2021). ...
Collaborative governance has emerged as a promising approach for addressing complex water sustainability issues, with purported benefits from enhanced democracy to improved environmental outcomes. Collaborative processes are often assumed to be inherently more equitable than traditional governance approaches due to their goal of engaging diverse actors in the development of policy and management solutions. However, when collaborative water governance processes ignore issues of politics and power in their design, they risk creating or even exacerbating existing inequities. How, then, can collaborative water governance processes be designed to enhance, rather than undermine, equity? To answer this question, we first conduct an extensive review of the collaborative governance literature to identify common design features of collaborative processes, which each present potential benefits and challenges for actualizing equitable collaborative water governance. After critically discussing these design features, we explore how they are executed through two case studies of collaborative water governance in western North America: groundwater governance reform in California and transnational Colorado River Delta governance. In reflecting on these cases, we chart an agenda for future collaborative water governance research and practice that moves beyond engaging diverse actors to promoting equity among them.
This article is categorized under: Human Water > Water Governance
Science of Water > Water and Environmental Change
Engineering Water > Planning Water
... First, we build on theories of multilevel governance to conceptualise the possible consequences of delegating political authority to task-specific and general-purpose jurisdictions (e.g., Bache et al., 2016;Hooghe & Marks, 2003;Kübler, 2015). These consequences include, for instance, changes to party competition at the domestic level (e.g., Hooghe & Marks, 2009) and to accountability relationships (e.g., Papadopoulos, 2007). Second, we rely on research on policy capacity to put forward expectations about how the competences attributed to the actors under investigation play out with respect to shifts in political authority (e.g., Wu et al., 2015). ...
Different streams of political research have pointed to two macro‐phenomena that appear as opposite at first glance: On the one hand, the increasing delegation of competencies to jurisdictions beyond the central government, resulting in the denationalization of political authority. On the other, the passing of reforms that reassert the centre of the nation state through policy integration and administrative coordination. In this article, we argue that these two processes can be analysed under a unified framework in terms of multilevel dynamics, whereby delegation ultimately elicits recentring reforms at the national level. To examine this argument and break down the mechanisms at work, we develop two sets of hypotheses: first, we theorise how the delegation of competencies to international organisations, sub‐national entities and independent agencies can eventually trigger recentring reforms; second, we propose that the capacity to act attributed to these actors also shapes such reforms. Our empirical analysis relies on an original dataset across four policy fields and 13 countries. By using multilevel regression models, we show that especially the delegation of competencies to agencies at the national level as well as the double delegation to European agencies increases the probability that governments pass recentring reforms. Furthermore, if these agencies have a stronger capacity to act, recentring becomes more likely. Our findings contribute to the development of multilevel governance as a dynamic theory of policy making.
... In turn, these seem to have resulted in blurred boundaries between the public and private sectors. Several scholars have highlighted that NPM, and the blurring of boundaries between the private and public spheres, can be detrimental to public ethics (Papadopoulos, 2007;Kersbergen and Waarden, 2004;Skålén, 2004;Box et al., 2001) as well as producing various danger zones for corruption (Andersson and Erlingsson 2012;Papakostas 2012;Lambsdorff 2007;Johnston, 2005;Heidenheimer et al. 1989). ...
Researchers have repeatedly found that corruption has a wide range of negative consequences, not least in developing countries where corruption typically constitutes an endemic part of people’s lives. However, much less is known about the prevalence and effects of corruption in mature democracies. While such states regularly find themselves at the top of anti-corruption rankings, they are not immune to corruption scandals related to, for instance, recruitment to public positions, procurement, the issuance of permits, etcetera.
Against this backdrop, some scholars have argued that the size of the corruption problem in mature democracies may be underestimated. One common and underlying argument is that corruption in these settings takes on hidden and ‘sophisticated’ forms that are difficult to expose, hard to prosecute, and therefore, difficult to measure. Accordingly, corruption in mature democracies has largely been downplayed or overlooked, and hence constitutes a blind spot for most practitioners and corruption scholars. That said, when scholars have paid attention to corruption in mature democracies, the tendency has been to focus on theoretical discussions rather than rigorous empirical research. As a result of measurement problems and data limitations, scholars have found it difficult to assess the extent of corruption in settings characterised by more sophisticated forms of corruption.
As a means of addressing this research gap, the overarching purpose of this thesis is to apply research strategies that allow us to quantify the prevalence and potential effects of corruption risks at the micro level in the context of a mature democracy – Sweden. This is achieved by employing large-scale administrative data combined with statistical methods that measure corruption risks at the granular level of individuals, firms, and processes. I maintain that the approaches employed in the thesis have at least two advantages vis-á-vis the lion’s share of existing corruption research: 1) it makes it possible to detect corruption risks in areas where the presence of corruption has previously been downplayed or unknown; and 2) it estimates corruption risks at the micro level, which allows for a more granular understanding of variations in corruption risks, between both municipalities and organisations.
Ultimately, the results of the thesis show the prevalence of corruption risks in the Swedish public sector in the areas of recruitment to public sector jobs, the rental housing market, and public procurement. Moreover, the thesis also shows that perceived corruption in Swedish municipalities is associated with lower levels of entrepreneurship. In line with a decent amount of previous research, the thesis’s main findings support the notion that subnational variations in institutional quality and impartiality are relevant even in mature democracies.
... First, their reliance on national administrative capacities in combination with their relatively informal and closed nature may end up insulating them from national and EU political steering. Second, these characteristics may complicate accountability to national and EU democratic actors (Martinsen and Jørgensen, 2010;Papadopoulos, 2007). Similarly, several observers have criticized the democratic credentials of European agencies, flowing from their non-majoritarian nature (Busuioc, 2012), although others have reached a more positive assessment (Dehousse, 2008), especially when comparing agencies to networks. ...
European Union (EU) governance faces a fundamental implementation and enforcement dilemma. On the one hand, calls for effective EU policies are manifold and have increased over time. On the other hand, the competence to implement and directly enforce EU policies remains with the member states. To overcome this dilemma, an emerging institutional architecture is taking form in which European Administrative Networks (EANs) and agencies assist the Commission in improving the implementation and enforcement of shared policies. This special issue provides a state-of-the-art analysis of EANs and related agencies as core components of the structure in making. To set the scene, this introduction presents different accounts of the establishment and development of EANs in relation to agencies. It then presents a functional continuum of EANs, spanning from information-sharing, data exchange to problem-solving networks. Finally, we discuss the challenges and shortcomings of the emerging, yet still diffuse, institutional architecture, including its accountability.
... From a more practical perspective, this study also unveils the importance of the policymakers' mental models in a multilevel-governance context and how regulators need to comprehend them to limit the emergence of systemic traps. Our study updates the discussion on the actual objectives of the CP and its future directions offering new perspectives (Begg, 2010;De Rynck & McAleavey, 2001;Stephenson, 2013), analyzes the risk of unintended consequences (Mendez & Bachtler, 2011) due to excessive focus on the financial dimension (Polverari, 2015), sheds light on the interaction of administrative capacity with the political sphere (Hagemann, 2019;Incaltarau et al., 2020), as well as highlights the necessity of a paradigm shift (Bachtler et al., 2019) and the importance of adopting a new point of view in the conceptual framework (Zahariadis, 2013), further showcasing how the mechanisms of democratic political accountability unfold in multilevel-governance environments (Papadopoulos, 2007). ...
Within European Cohesion Policy, some regions manifest chronic problems with absorbing structural funds, probably due to inadequate administrative capacity. Despite the continuous assistance to improve capacity and the accumulation of learning and experience, poor performances still persist in some territories, rendering the initial explanation partial. By collecting (reports' analysis and field research), consolidating (grounded theory), and mapping (system dynamics) two Italian regions with contrasting absorption performance, this study investigates how regional authorities may be trapped in systemic decision-making structures that prioritize short-term outcomes perpetuating low absorption rates. Within a multilevel-governance context, we suggest that these decision-making traps stem from the discrepancy between European and local policy-makers' mental models; although European policies aim to promote timely absorption, sometimes they fail to acknowledge local authorities' actual agenda and may unintentionally prompt regions to overemphasize short term funds' expenditure instead of improving administrative capacity in the long term.
... Second, the multi-level framework in which 'place-based' policies are cast involves a great degree of complexity in the planning process, often with significant bureaucratic redundancies and conflicts among levels, which makes coordination difficult and implementation slow (Hooge et al., 2010). This complexity can, in turn, decrease transparency and accountability (Papadopoulos, 2007). ...
After more than thirty years of post-war relative regional convergence, since the 1980s geographical inequalities in economic prosperity and social conditions have widened again in most capitalist countries. In this paper we argue that this resumption of spatial inequality is in part explained by the significant changes observed in the role of the state and in public intervention in the shift from the post-war ‘Keynesian’ regime of state regulation to the ‘Neoliberal’ regime that has held sway over the past four decades. We argue that most public policies enacted in this latter period have actually exacerbated socioeconomic – and spatial – polarization, favouring a few metropolitan areas and regions at the expense of a substantial number of what are now commonly referred to as ‘left behind places’. We contend that we are now at a new juncture in the evolution of capitalism: in the space of little more than decade the global system has been destabilized by a major financial crisis (2008) and the COVID-19 pandemic (2020), both with enduring socio-economic aftershocks, while the climate emergency is reaching existential proportions. In this Editorial Introduction we call for a bold ‘rethinking’ of public action - and especially spatial policy - to face these recurring crises, and we outline some pointers for more effective and inclusive policies.
... Many scholars have highlighted the presence of multiple types of accountability in collaborative governance, including legal, political, managerial, social and professional accountability (Klijn & Koppenjan, 2014). This multitude of different types of accountability may lead to "fuzzy" accountability (Millar, 2013, p. 257) and a 'many hands' problem (Bache et al., 2015;Cengiz, 2012;Esmark, 2007;Papadopoulos, 2003Papadopoulos, , 2007, resulting in an unclear division of labour and attribution of responsibility (Pellinen et al., 2018, p. 627) and tensions between competing values of efficiency, equity, and democratic accountability (Lindquist & Huse, 2017;Page et al., 2015). Some warn against the risks of the fuzzy and often opaque accountabilities of collaborative governance networks and point to potentially illegitimate policy processes and outcomes (Bache et al., 2015). ...
Across Europe, public employment services are experimenting with more holistic and cross‐sector collaborations to tackle the wicked problem of long‐term unemployment. These collaborations operate in a context characterised by tensions produced by multiple demands for accountability. Based on case studies of the accountability relations and challenges in five such collaborations in the Netherlands, Belgium (Flanders), Estonia, Scotland and Denmark, we found that: rigorous use of quantifiable measurement regimes made it difficult to attribute salience to important aspects of the progress made by the unemployed citizen; standardised accounts come with the risk of reductionist understandings of the citizen's social circumstances and resources; superficial participation by local politicians resulted in rather weak political accountability and a marked ambiguity of the role of the client as both accountee and accountholder.
... The most obvious and probably the most difficult challenge in this context is ensuring a representative participation that at the same time is not prone to exploitation by companies whose main business is to make profit (Bogs, 1977;Braun et al., 2008Braun et al., , 2017Gerlinger et al., 2016). When increasing participation, elected officials struggle with the best ways to balance citizens' voice against the influence of other actors than those regarded as legitimate decisionmakers by ordinary citizens (Papadopoulos, 2007). Moreover, in participative models, it cannot be ruled out that individuals with more time and motivation, such as retired people, are overrepresented, and thus not all voices are equally heard (de Savornin Lohman, 2000;van de Bovenkamp, 2010). ...
Health system governance has been receiving increasing attention in health system research since the 1980s. The contemporary challenges that the German health system is faced with are often closely linked to governance issues. Although Germany has the highest health expenditure as a share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the European Union (EU), the spending on healthcare is out of proportion to the health outcomes of the population. The reason for this lies mainly in the complexity of the German health system which is hard to steer due to several administrative levels in the country and numerous policy actors to whom the decision-making power on healthcare provision is delegated. In this paper, we present the results of focus group discussions on governance and build upon the insights gained through the Neustart project of the Robert Bosch Foundation. Based on an internationally recognised health governance framework from the World Health Organization (WHO), experts who work in, on or for the German health system addressed health governance challenges. They provided evidence-based recommendations for the new legislative period (2021-2025) on transparency, accountability, participation, integrity and capacity of the German health system.
... 76 Daarom is het belangrijk om te bezien welke rol internationale organisaties en transnationale netwerken spelen en hoe de machtsverhoudingen hierbinnen liggen. 77 Dit behelst het analyseren van de structuren waarin internationale standaarden ontstaan, het identificeren van wie de sleutelspelers in deze netwerken zijn, alsmede het kritisch analyseren wiens belangen gediend zijn bij de internationale afspraken die worden gemaakt. 78 Pas als die patronen scherper in beeld zijn, kunnen vragen over verantwoording en internationalisering van toezicht beter beantwoord worden. ...
... There are several problems that arise from the relationship between MLG and indigenous self-determination. First, hierarchies are almost unavoidable, be they vertical Second, MLG can undermine democratic accountability by making MLG procedures (including the selection of relevant decision makers and veto players) more obscure to the public, and favoring horizontal over vertical accountability (Papadopoulos, 2007(Papadopoulos, , 2010. While the effects of federalism and other MLG arrangements on accountability and democracy have already been explored in long-standing democracies and transitional regimes, more accounts are needed to explore whether MLG arrangements can actually uphold other collective rights in places where democracy is absent or flawed. ...
Previous research has offered mixed results regarding whether federalism and other mechanisms of multilevel governance (MLG) present advantages or disadvantages for civil society and, in particular, impoverish ethnic minorities. Since self-determination is a key element of the political autonomy of Indigenous peoples (IPs), this paper explores under which circumstances different mechanisms of MLG foster the rights of IPs in the Federation of Malaysia from the perspective of Indigenous activists. This work relies on face-to-face, semi-structured interviews with Indigenous activists, advocates and stakeholders from different states of the federation, with different levels of self-government and quality of democracy. The main findings suggest that any attempt to evaluate the performance of MLG arrangements in the fulfilment of the rights of IPs should consider the relationship between Indigenous organizations and state and local governments – a relationship that depends on the distribution of Indigenous populations – and the degree of political accountability in specific territories.
... The resulting gray area between the public and private sectors can limit project transparency (Hodge, 2004;Papadopoulos, 2007;Reynaers, 2014). Bloomfield (2006) argues that contractual partnerships are vulnerable to transparency problems because of the long-term and complex financial arrangements. ...
This study examines PPPs in terms of providing public value and analyzes the structuring of PPP contractual agreements to achieve public values of accountability, transparency, responsibility, responsiveness, and quality. We focus on transportation PPP projects utilizing case studies of the I-495 and I-95 PPP projects in northern Virginia. Review of contractual documents governing the PPPs and analysis of supplemental data related to PPP outcomes is conducted. We examine the creation and maintenance of public value through the process and performance elements of the contractual agreement. Study findings provide insight into how the roles, relationships, and interactions of the public and private partners, reflected in process and performance elements, are incorporated into agreements to ensure public value.
... Over time, this approach to accountability became widely employed in empirical research, especially in EU studies (e.g. Bovens et al. 2010b;Busuioc 2013;Curtin and Egeberg 2008;Harlow and Rawlings 2007;Markakis 2020;Papadopoulos 2007;Schillemans 2008). The generality of the stages made the approach particularly applicable to the EU's multi-level system. ...
This book provides the first in-depth empirical study of the European Parliament's powers of scrutiny of the executive in the European Union (EU) political system, focusing on the politically salient field of the Economic and Monetary Union. The expansion of executive decision-making during the euro crisis was accompanied by an empowerment of the European Parliament through legislative oversight. This book examines how the European Parliament exercises that oversight on a day-to-day basis and thus contributes to political accountability at the EU level. Building on an innovative analytical framework for the study of parliamentary questions and answers, Adina Akbik sheds light on the European Parliament's possibilities and limitations to hold EU executive bodies accountable more generally. Case studies cover the period 2012 to 2019 and include the European Central Bank in banking supervision, the European Commission, the Eurogroup, and the Economic and Financial Affairs Council. This title is Open Access.
... 290-295). Thus, the collaborative and often informal nature of collaborative governance may lead to insufficient accountability and, ultimately, to dwindling legitimacy (Papadopoulos 2007). Finally, a few studies point out that collaborative governance is by default imbued with power relations, which at times may negatively influence the accountability and legitimacy (Huxham et al. 2000;Purdy 2012;Willems and Van Dooren 2011). ...
Parties are the nucleus of modern parliaments. Therefore it is crucial to understand cooperation and competition within parties. In most parliaments, we can observe some form of cooperation, like cosponsorship.
In this paper, cosponsorship is used to identify the relationships of MPs within their parliamentary party group, and to infer whether this relational position has an effect on their reselection. Are better embedded and connected MPs more likely to be reselected? Do peers matter in reselection? This question is also of theoretical interest in the light of competing principals (Carey, 2007).
The empirical analysis first replicates the model of MP renomination by Baumann et al. (2017), adding a new data set from the German Bundestag, used to provide the relational independent variables of cosponsorship centrality. The key finding of the analysis is indeed: cosponsorship closeness is a significant predictor of MP reselection and can be seen as a compelling complement to the model by Baumann et al.
With cooperation shown to be significant when it comes to renomination, the understanding of peer-induced competition, competing principals theory can be further developed, to aid our understanding of MP cooperation and competition, delegation, agency and collective principals in modern parties.
Sub-standard living conditions among migrant workers have become a structural feature all over Europe. Although this has attracted the attention of many scholars, there is a lack of studies on the complex relations between various stakeholders in governing housing. This study fills this gap by analysing this housing issue from a governance network perspective. Through an analysis of policy documents and interviews with twenty-one stakeholders, we investigated institutional and strategic complexities. The results show that decision-making is complicated by unclear institutional accountability patterns and the diverging strategic interests of various stakeholders. The interrelationship between the loosely defined institutional setting (structure) and the varying interests of involved actors (agency) has led to a policy impasse that is difficult to breach. We argue that a reconsideration of existing accountability patterns is needed to reduce sub-standard housing conditions among migrant workers in the Netherlands.
Transparency is recognized as a crucial condition for accountability, good governance and democracy. As right to information (RTI) laws have spread, it is crucial to ask whether ambitious legislative frameworks translate to de facto transparency. In this article, we test how well local governments in Sweden – a ‘most-likely country’ for implementing RTI-laws – comply with its comparatively ambitious Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act. As a side-effect, we also gauge if New Public Management-reforms, here illustrated by increased public ownership of enterprises in local government, implies lessened compliance with RTI-legislation. Requesting information from 462 randomly selected public administrations and municipally owned enterprises, counter-intuitive findings are observed. Less than half of the organizations respected the RTI-legislation, and no significant differences were found between the public administrations and publicly owned enterprises. The findings have methodological as well as empirical implications. They highlight the importance of not only studying legislative frameworks, but also analyzing actual implementation of RTI-frameworks in everyday situations. Also, they demonstrate that problems relating to openness can be observed in low-corrupt, mature democracies with strong bureaucratic capacity that traditionally are hailed for their long history of ambitious RTI-laws. Lastly, and contrary to much popular belief, the findings indicate that publicly owned corporations not necessarily do imply a ‘accountability deficit’.
This Element comprehensively scrutinizes the key issue of the accountability of policy-makers in democratic governance. The electoral punishment of the incumbents, parliamentary control of the government, and sanctions in the case of administrative misconduct or negligence are the most visible manifestations of accountability in politics. However, the phenomenon is much more complex, and fully understanding such a multifaceted object requires bridging bodies of work that usually remain disjointed. This Element assesses the effectiveness of vertical accountability through elections and how interinstitutional accountability operates in checks-and-balances systems, along with the growing role of the courts. It evaluates how the accountability of the bureaucracy has been affected by managerial reforms and different governance transformations. It also scrutinizes to what extent mediatization and policy failure boost accountability, before zooming in on the feelings and reactions of those who are held accountable. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
This book provides the first in-depth empirical study of the European Parliament's powers of scrutiny of the executive in the European Union (EU) political system, focusing on the politically salient field of the Economic and Monetary Union. The expansion of executive decision-making during the euro crisis was accompanied by an empowerment of the European Parliament through legislative oversight. This book examines how the European Parliament exercises that oversight on a day-to-day basis and thus contributes to political accountability at the EU level. Building on an innovative analytical framework for the study of parliamentary questions and answers, Adina Akbik sheds light on the European Parliament's possibilities and limitations to hold EU executive bodies accountable more generally. Case studies cover the period 2012 to 2019 and include the European Central Bank in banking supervision, the European Commission, the Eurogroup, and the Economic and Financial Affairs Council. This title is Open Access.
While there is a broad literature on ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all (SDG7), the positive impact of electrification on development and on electrification strategies, there is little literature on the topic of devolved electrification governance. The paper addresses this issue by analyzing opportunities and challenges of a devolved electrification governance with Kenya as a case study. Conceptually, we base our exploration on an analytical framework adapted from work on multi-level natural-resource governance, which not only includes actors and policies, but also their interactions and power relations, and the analysis of devolution outcomes in the light of (good) governance principles. Methodologically we rely on an extensive literature review and on 24 expert interviews in Kenya. Kenya is chosen as a case study because Kenya has, after its new Constitution came into force in 2010, implemented an ambitious devolution process and is one of the few countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that has devolved important energy functions. However, our results show that devolved electrification governance in Kenya is (still) fragmented and complex, partly due to the late enactment of the Energy Act (2019). Electrification is still mainly planned and implemented by actors on the national level, although decentralized structures and technologies have become more important in recent electrification policies. We found more challenges than opportunities in Kenya's devolved electrification governance. The biggest challenge is a lack of capability in the county governments; other challenges relate to legitimacy and overlapping responsibilities, transparency and information-sharing, accountability of national actors, as well as a lack of inclusiveness and participation of local communities. Despite existing challenges, our interviewees perceive devolution as dynamic and an opportunity for electrification and universal electricity access in the long run. Overall, the article shows that while devolution provides opportunities for electrification and associated development impacts, a devolved electrification governance is challenging and requires not only transparency and information-sharing, but also support for capacity building at decentralized levels.
Technological convergence is remaking and even erasing the borders between industries once considered separate, and is forcing policymakers to evolve new regulatory frameworks for a rapidly changing industrial environment. Using the advocacy coalition framework, the authors investigate a struggle by Flemish broadcasters against video distributors to protect the integrity of their broadcast signals. The authors argue that the case may be an indicator of the struggles to come as the television space struggles with convergence, with implications for the European Union and other regions.
Experts are increasingly relied on in decision-making processes at international and European levels. Their involvement in those processes, however, is contested. This timely book on the role of 'experts' provides a broad-gauged analysis of the issues raised by their involvement in decision-making processes. The chapters explore three main recurring themes: the rationales for involving experts and ensuing legitimacy problems; the individual and collective dimensions of expert involvement in decision making; and experts and politics and the politics of expertise. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners, they theorize the experts' involvement in general and address their role in the policy areas of environment, trade, human rights, migration, financial regulation, and agencification in the European Union.
Experts are increasingly relied on in decision-making processes at international and European levels. Their involvement in those processes, however, is contested. This timely book on the role of 'experts' provides a broad-gauged analysis of the issues raised by their involvement in decision-making processes. The chapters explore three main recurring themes: the rationales for involving experts and ensuing legitimacy problems; the individual and collective dimensions of expert involvement in decision making; and experts and politics and the politics of expertise. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners, they theorize the experts' involvement in general and address their role in the policy areas of environment, trade, human rights, migration, financial regulation, and agencification in the European Union.
Experts are increasingly relied on in decision-making processes at international and European levels. Their involvement in those processes, however, is contested. This timely book on the role of 'experts' provides a broad-gauged analysis of the issues raised by their involvement in decision-making processes. The chapters explore three main recurring themes: the rationales for involving experts and ensuing legitimacy problems; the individual and collective dimensions of expert involvement in decision making; and experts and politics and the politics of expertise. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners, they theorize the experts' involvement in general and address their role in the policy areas of environment, trade, human rights, migration, financial regulation, and agencification in the European Union.
Experts are increasingly relied on in decision-making processes at international and European levels. Their involvement in those processes, however, is contested. This timely book on the role of 'experts' provides a broad-gauged analysis of the issues raised by their involvement in decision-making processes. The chapters explore three main recurring themes: the rationales for involving experts and ensuing legitimacy problems; the individual and collective dimensions of expert involvement in decision making; and experts and politics and the politics of expertise. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners, they theorize the experts' involvement in general and address their role in the policy areas of environment, trade, human rights, migration, financial regulation, and agencification in the European Union.
Experts are increasingly relied on in decision-making processes at international and European levels. Their involvement in those processes, however, is contested. This timely book on the role of 'experts' provides a broad-gauged analysis of the issues raised by their involvement in decision-making processes. The chapters explore three main recurring themes: the rationales for involving experts and ensuing legitimacy problems; the individual and collective dimensions of expert involvement in decision making; and experts and politics and the politics of expertise. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners, they theorize the experts' involvement in general and address their role in the policy areas of environment, trade, human rights, migration, financial regulation, and agencification in the European Union.
Experts are increasingly relied on in decision-making processes at international and European levels. Their involvement in those processes, however, is contested. This timely book on the role of 'experts' provides a broad-gauged analysis of the issues raised by their involvement in decision-making processes. The chapters explore three main recurring themes: the rationales for involving experts and ensuing legitimacy problems; the individual and collective dimensions of expert involvement in decision making; and experts and politics and the politics of expertise. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners, they theorize the experts' involvement in general and address their role in the policy areas of environment, trade, human rights, migration, financial regulation, and agencification in the European Union.
Experts are increasingly relied on in decision-making processes at international and European levels. Their involvement in those processes, however, is contested. This timely book on the role of 'experts' provides a broad-gauged analysis of the issues raised by their involvement in decision-making processes. The chapters explore three main recurring themes: the rationales for involving experts and ensuing legitimacy problems; the individual and collective dimensions of expert involvement in decision making; and experts and politics and the politics of expertise. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners, they theorize the experts' involvement in general and address their role in the policy areas of environment, trade, human rights, migration, financial regulation, and agencification in the European Union.
Experts are increasingly relied on in decision-making processes at international and European levels. Their involvement in those processes, however, is contested. This timely book on the role of 'experts' provides a broad-gauged analysis of the issues raised by their involvement in decision-making processes. The chapters explore three main recurring themes: the rationales for involving experts and ensuing legitimacy problems; the individual and collective dimensions of expert involvement in decision making; and experts and politics and the politics of expertise. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners, they theorize the experts' involvement in general and address their role in the policy areas of environment, trade, human rights, migration, financial regulation, and agencification in the European Union.
Experts are increasingly relied on in decision-making processes at international and European levels. Their involvement in those processes, however, is contested. This timely book on the role of 'experts' provides a broad-gauged analysis of the issues raised by their involvement in decision-making processes. The chapters explore three main recurring themes: the rationales for involving experts and ensuing legitimacy problems; the individual and collective dimensions of expert involvement in decision making; and experts and politics and the politics of expertise. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners, they theorize the experts' involvement in general and address their role in the policy areas of environment, trade, human rights, migration, financial regulation, and agencification in the European Union.
Experts are increasingly relied on in decision-making processes at international and European levels. Their involvement in those processes, however, is contested. This timely book on the role of 'experts' provides a broad-gauged analysis of the issues raised by their involvement in decision-making processes. The chapters explore three main recurring themes: the rationales for involving experts and ensuing legitimacy problems; the individual and collective dimensions of expert involvement in decision making; and experts and politics and the politics of expertise. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners, they theorize the experts' involvement in general and address their role in the policy areas of environment, trade, human rights, migration, financial regulation, and agencification in the European Union.
Experts are increasingly relied on in decision-making processes at international and European levels. Their involvement in those processes, however, is contested. This timely book on the role of 'experts' provides a broad-gauged analysis of the issues raised by their involvement in decision-making processes. The chapters explore three main recurring themes: the rationales for involving experts and ensuing legitimacy problems; the individual and collective dimensions of expert involvement in decision making; and experts and politics and the politics of expertise. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners, they theorize the experts' involvement in general and address their role in the policy areas of environment, trade, human rights, migration, financial regulation, and agencification in the European Union.
Experts are increasingly relied on in decision-making processes at international and European levels. Their involvement in those processes, however, is contested. This timely book on the role of 'experts' provides a broad-gauged analysis of the issues raised by their involvement in decision-making processes. The chapters explore three main recurring themes: the rationales for involving experts and ensuing legitimacy problems; the individual and collective dimensions of expert involvement in decision making; and experts and politics and the politics of expertise. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners, they theorize the experts' involvement in general and address their role in the policy areas of environment, trade, human rights, migration, financial regulation, and agencification in the European Union.
Experts are increasingly relied on in decision-making processes at international and European levels. Their involvement in those processes, however, is contested. This timely book on the role of 'experts' provides a broad-gauged analysis of the issues raised by their involvement in decision-making processes. The chapters explore three main recurring themes: the rationales for involving experts and ensuing legitimacy problems; the individual and collective dimensions of expert involvement in decision making; and experts and politics and the politics of expertise. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners, they theorize the experts' involvement in general and address their role in the policy areas of environment, trade, human rights, migration, financial regulation, and agencification in the European Union.
Experts are increasingly relied on in decision-making processes at international and European levels. Their involvement in those processes, however, is contested. This timely book on the role of 'experts' provides a broad-gauged analysis of the issues raised by their involvement in decision-making processes. The chapters explore three main recurring themes: the rationales for involving experts and ensuing legitimacy problems; the individual and collective dimensions of expert involvement in decision making; and experts and politics and the politics of expertise. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners, they theorize the experts' involvement in general and address their role in the policy areas of environment, trade, human rights, migration, financial regulation, and agencification in the European Union.
Negotiations in the Council of the European Union have been described as non-transparent since access to certain documents concerning the deliberations is restricted. As a result, national parliaments struggle to hold their national governments to account. Parliaments, providing a direct link between voters and the executive, play a vital role in granting legitimacy to the EU. Their incapacity weakens the democratic legitimacy of the European project. Existing literature on the topic has examined the formal powers of national parliaments and how active they are. However, it has failed to explore their access to information. This paper analyses the access to information on deliberations in the Council by the German European Affairs Committee (EAC) in the Bundestag. Interviews were conducted with members of the German EAC and their EU policy advisors. The analysis revealed that the German EAC employs an extensive network of direct oversight, manually scrutinizing a large number of documents. Certain limitations of this method were revealed, as due to capacity constraints only select decisions were examined. Individual citizens, organized interest and the media were shown to play a role in triggering the oversight at times, thus providing the impetus to start the scrutiny process.
To address complex social problems, such as long-term unemployment, local authorities in many countries are developing “holistic” or “integrated” services, where multiple actors and professions collaborate with a view to better meet the needs of the individual citizen. By breaking with existing practices and regulations, collaborative services must be legitimized in new ways so as to appear acceptable not only in the eyes of the public and politicians, but also to caseworkers and the long-term unemployed persons. This article examines the multifarious and sometimes neglected efforts to make these collaborative services legitimate in the eyes of this plurality of stakeholders on multiple levels of governance. Our study indicates three distinct but mutually interrelated spheres of audience that require partly conflicting justification work. We also find that the narrow pursuit of justification work to ensure legitimacy with one audience may potentially jeopardize the justification work in the other two.
Collaborative governance is a promising supplement to traditional Weberian bureaucracy and New Public Management. However, the legitimacy and accountability of collaborative governance processes and outcomes is questionable. Based on a comprehensive mapping of the scholarly literature, we show that the sweeping multiplicity of accountability and legitimacy conceptions, types and critiques is structured by two democratic logics: an electoral one revolving around the territorial state and a stakeholder one focused on the collaborative network. The article provides the first attempt to position the conceptions, types and critiques of the accountability and legitimacy of collaborative governance in one map.
Purpose
Resilience can be understood as the ability of communities to adapt to disturbances in a way that reduces chronic vulnerability and promotes growth. Disaster scholars assert that resilience is developed through a set of adaptive capacities across multiple domains, including society, the economy, the built and natural environments, and sociopolitical institutions. These adaptive capacities have been thought to be networked, but little is known about how they are connected. The authors explore how institutional capacity and social capital intersect to influence change adaptation, using a case from the Artic: Longyearbyen in the Svalbard archipelago.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use case study methods that integrate original interviews of Longyearbyen residents with news articles and public documents to analyze emergent themes related to institutional capacity, social capital and disaster risk reduction.
Findings
Analyses reveal that implementation gaps in hazard and disaster programs and policies, coupled with high turnover of staff in key positions, have created accountability issues indicative of low institutional capacity and weak social capital between the public and government. Additionally, high turnover of the population of the community, within the context of the legacy as a mining company town, is accompanied by social divisions and low trust between diverse cultural groups in the community. This lack of social capital provides little support for institutional capacity to effectively mitigate risk posed by climate change.
Originality/value
This study illuminates institutional capacity building needs directly related to disaster resilience for cases of complex institutional arrangements and developing democracy.
Technological convergence is remaking and even erasing the borders between industries once considered separate, and is forcing policymakers to evolve new regulatory frameworks for a rapidly changing industrial environment. Using the advocacy coalition framework, the authors investigate a struggle by Flemish broadcasters against video distributors to protect the integrity of their broadcast signals. The authors argue that the case may be an indicator of the struggles to come as the television space struggles with convergence, with implications for the European Union and other regions.
Networks of experts coordinated or orchestrated by international bodies have become so widespread and influential that they are said to shape a new world order. Standards for consumer safety, investor protection, and environmental sustainability are governed by appeals to the epistemic authority of experts. Typically, formal international organizations orchestrate cross-border constellations of public–private collaborations between groups that are deemed to have relevant knowledge. This trend is part of a depoliticization of decision- making; policy issues are framed as technical problems that should be kept at a distance from party politics. The question here is how to conceptualize and assess this development in democratic terms.
In this chapter, I present the results of the transatlantic cross-case comparison carried out in the previous chapters with the aim of assessing the validity of the interpretations presented in the literature, and I draw conclusions on the explanatory leverage of the actor-centred and relational interpretative framework for the CN-MLG nexus. On this basis, I discuss the contribution of my study to ongoing debates on MLG (6.3) and on the role of CNs in the governance of global challenges and migration more specifically (6.4). I finally identify perspectives and venues for possible future developments in research on MLG, cities and migration in the context of the (post-) COVID-19 pandemic and new emerging challenges for policymakers.
This chapter is dedicated to a discussion of the migration studies literature that has addressed from different perspectives—i.e. EU policymaking, paradiplomacy and urban policy—the emergence of a CN-MLG link. More specifically, I review the scholarly debate on the local dimension of migration policy by first considering literature that focuses on policy outputs (3.2) and then studies that conceptualise policy as processes and look at cities in the context of multilevel policymaking dynamics. In the fourth section I further develop my theoretical framework by first discussing the main hypotheses on the migration CN-MLG nexus that can be drawn from the—scarce—existing literature and then building an actor-centred and relational interpretative framework. In Sect. 3.5 I provide details of the methodology and data sources for my empirical study of migration CNs in the EU and the US, and I introduce the CNs I have observed.
In this chapter, I delve into scholarly debates on MLG and CNs in more depth to identify key perspectives, promising research avenues and also pitfalls and limitations. In the second part, I build on this literature to propose a new conceptual and analytical framework for the theorisation of the factors and mechanisms underlying the emergence of a CN-MLG nexus. This framework rests on two key premises: (1) a conceptualisation of MLG as a specific instance or mode of policymaking; and (2) an understanding of the city as an arena and of CNs as organisations shaped by actors’ different agendas and perspectives. Taken together, these two premises constitute the background against which I argue for a need to take an actor-centred and relational approach to the analysis of the CN-MLG nexus.
In this paper we seek to understand the impact of the macro-political context on power configurations within policy subsystems. For this purpose we systematically compare policy networks in three major policy subsystems and seven Western European countries (and the EU) on the basis of a typology for the power configurations within policy subsystems. We link the European, domestic and policy-specific context to our typology of policy networks. To test the hypotheses we conduct empirical network and reputational analysis of 345 interviews with key policy‐makers. The results point not only to the importance of the EU context, but also to the complex interplay of domestic and policy-specific contexts for understanding domestic power configurations. Domestic power configurations vary not only from country to country, but also within the countries depending on the policy domain.
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Javnost - The Public on 10 Nov 2014, available online: http://tandfonline.com/10.1080/13183222.2013.11009118
One of the most important developments of western democracies in recent years is the demand for more democratic control and accountability. This new demand can be observed in the constant increase of mechanisms of control over political bodies and institutions, and also the diversification of these mechanisms. At the EU level, these changes are so clear that many policy-makers and scholars feel that it is bringing about a renewal of democracy. Since this article goes along with normative judgement, it is necessary to investigate these transformations with the following questions: Has the EU developed a new model of democracy that could be called "diffuse democracy' and is better suited to its particular structure? Is it merely an extension of the notion of "legal community'? The case studies assembled in this special issue seek to grasp the reality of accountability mechanisms in the EU and to assess whether they can be considered as elements of a new democratic paradigm.
This article examines the EU structural fund system from a democratic point of view and starts theorizing on the nature of basic democracy problems. The analysis is guided by a parliamentary, a pluralistic and an e´lite-democratic model. None of these models seems to fit well with how the system works in practice, summarized as top-down and technocratic with important vertical co-ordination between administrative levels, which tends to marginalize the role of democratic institutions. Five types of fundamental problem are identified and analysed in terms of democracy paradoxes (multi-level, vertical, economic, horizontal, multi-demos). It is difficult to dissolve these paradoxes because they reflect existing structural fund institutions. In order to democratize, they need to be challenged, either by regulating partnerships in a more democratic way or by challenging the partnership principle with the parliamentary principle.
The EU's ‘semi-pluralist’ policy-making processes have had a differential impact on its member states' policy-making processes as a matter of institutional ‘fit’, with greater disruption to the statist systems of France and Britain than to the corporatist systems of Germany and Italy. Such ‘macro’ patterns of adjustment to the EU are complicated, however, by the ‘micro’ patterns of policy-making in any given policy sector. These may differ from the ‘macro’ pattern at EU or national level. This raises the question of whether we can still talk about Europeanization in terms of ‘macro’ patterns of national policy-making. This article answers in the affirmative, demonstrating with the matched pairs of cases of France and Britain, Germany and Italy, that despite the fact that national patterns are less distinctive than in the past, they nevertheless remain distinguishable along a continuum from statist through corporatist, although pluralism has become a new default option in between the two.
Debates about globalization have centered on calls to improve accountability to limit abuses of power in world politics. How should we think about global accountability in the absence of global democracy? Who should hold whom to account and according to what standards? Thinking clearly about these questions requires recognizing a distinction, evident in theories of accountability at the nation-state level, between “participation” and “delegation” models of accountability. The distinction helps to explain why accountability is so problematic at the global level and to clarify alternative possibilities for pragmatic improvements in accountability mechanisms globally. We identify seven types of accountability mechanisms and consider their applicability to states, NGOs, multilateral organizations, multinational corporations, and transgovernmental networks. By disaggregating the problem in this way, we hope to identify opportunities for improving protections against abuses of power at the global level.
Since 1 May 1997 the Labour government in the United Kingdom has implemented a number of public–private partnerships (PPPs) as a central tool of governance within their wider modernisation agenda. To date, the introduction of PPPs has largely been evaluated through conceptual lenses that emphasise either the administrative, managerial, financial or technical dimensions of this reform strategy. This article seeks to complement this wider literature by arguing that PPPs raise a host of political issues and tensions that have largely been overlooked. Five specific themes are set out in order to provide a framework or organising perspective. These are: efficiency; risk; complexity; accountability; and governance and the future of state projects. The main conclusion of the article is that PPPs represent a Faustian bargain in that forms of PPP may deliver efficiency gains and service improvements in some policy areas but these benefits may involve substantial political and democratic costs.
Parliamentary democracy has been widely embraced bypoliticians and especially by the scholarly communitybut remains less widely understood. In this essay, Iidentify the institutional features that defineparliamentary democracy and suggest how they can beunderstood as delegation relationships. I proposetwo definitions: one minimal and one maximal (orideal-typical). In the latter sense, parliamentarydemocracy is a particular regime of delegation andaccountability that can be understood with the help ofagency theory, which allows us to identify theconditions under which democratic agency problems mayoccur. Parliamentarism is simple, indirect, andrelies on lessons gradually acquired in the past. Compared to presidentialism, parliamentarism hascertain advantages, such as decisional efficiency andthe inducements it creates toward effort. On theother hand, parliamentarism also implies disadvantagessuch as ineffective accountability and a lack oftransparency, which may cause informationalinefficiencies. And whereas parliamentarism may beparticularly suitable for problems of adverseselection, it is a less certain cure for moral hazard.In contemporary advanced societies, parliamentarism isfacing the challenges of decaying screening devicesand diverted accountabilities
In this Article, Professors Dorf and Sabel identif a new form of government, democratic experimentalism, in which power is decentralized to enable citizens and other actors to utilize their local knowledge to fit solutions to their individual circumstances, but in which regional and national coordinating bodies require actors to share their knowledge with others facing similar problems. This information pooling, informed by the example of novel kinds of coordination within and among private firms, both increases the efficiency of public administration by encouraging mutual learning among its parts and heightens its accountability through participation of citizens in the decisions that affect them.In democratic experimentalism, subnational units of government are broadly free to set goals and to choose the means to attain them. Regulatory agencies set and ensure compliance with national objectives by means of best-practice performance standards based on information that regulated entities provide in return for the freedom to experiment with solutions they prefer. The authors argue that this type of self-government is currently emerging in settings as diverse as the regulation of nuclear power plants, community policing, procurement of sophisticated military hardware, environmental regulation, and child-protective services.The Article claims further that a shift towards democratic experimentalism holds out the promise of reducing the distance between, on the one hand, the Madisonian ideal of a limited government assured by a complex division of powers and, on the other hand, the governmental reality characteristic of the New Deal synthesis, in which an all-powerful Congress delegates much of its authority to expert agencies that are checked by the courts when they infringe individual rights, but are otherwise assumed to act in the public interest. Professors Dorf and Sabel argue that the combination of decentralization and mutual monitoring intrinsic to democratic experimentalism better protects the constitutional ideal than do doctrines offederalism and the separation of powers, so at odds with current circumstances, that courts recognize the futility of applying them consistently in practice by limiting themselves to fitful declarations of their validity in principle.For example, conventional administrative law imposes external judicial checks on administrative agencies, obliging judges to choose between superficial scrutiny of formal proprieties and disruptive, indeed often paralyzing, inquiry into what an idealized agency might be expected to do. By contrast, democratic experimentalism requires the social actors, separately and in exchange with each other, to take constitutional considerations into account in their decisionmaking. The administrative agency assists the actors even while monitoring their performance by scrutinizing the reactions of each to relevant proposals by the others. The courts then determine whether the agency has met its obligations to foster and generalize the results of this information pooling. Agencies and courts alike use the rich record of the parties' intentions, as interpreted by their acts contained in the continuing, comparative evaluation of experimentation itself In the administrative and related settings, the aim of democratic experimentalism is to democratize public decisionmaking from within, and so lessen the burdens on a judiciay that today awkwardly superintends the every-day workings of democracy from an external vantage point.Finally, the Article reconceptualizes constitutional rights. Relying in this and other regards on ideas associated with early-twentieth-century American pragmatism, the Article treats disagreements over rights as principally about how to implement widely shared general principles. Under the heading of "prophylactic rules" and related doctrines, the United States Supreme Court has recognized that there are often a variety of acceptable remedies for a violation of rights or a variety of acceptable means of achieving a constitutionally mandated end. The authors argue for a radical extension of these doctrines, in which judicial recognition of a general, core right, permits substantial experimentation about how to implement that right. They propose institutional mechanisms to facilitate such experimentation. The authors contend, however, that with rights, as with other constitutionally entrenched principles, means and ends cannot be neatly separated, so that experimentation at the periphery also redefines the core, ultimately challenging the very distinction between core and periphery.
There is now a substantial body of research on populism which focuses, in particular, on what motivates people to support successful national-populist parties, such as ‘Verdrossenheit’ (frustration) with established parties (Schedler 1996), reactions against the success of ‘left-libertarian’ movements (Kitschelt and McGann 1995), or the concern of the losers in the modernisation process triggered by internationalisation (Kriesi 1999), and the fears of those negatively affected by post-industrial forms of social organisation (Ignazi 1999). In contrast to these important empirical findings, this chapter is guided by more theoretical and conjectural considerations. As it is reductionist to consider populism as either a pathology of, or a threat to, democracy, I shall focus on the ambivalent link between populism and democracy, which in turn requires a certain familiarity with major debates taking place in democratic theory. In this analysis I will attempt to formulate new hypotheses as to the origins of populist successes, and possible links with the transformations taking place in democratic decision-making, which in turn requires an understanding of the lessons of policy analysis.
Parliamentary democracy is the most common way of organizing delegation and accountability in contemporary democracies. Yet knowledge of this type of regime has been incomplete and often unsystematic. Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies offers new conceptual clarity on the topic. Taking principal-agent theory as its framework, the work illustrates how a variety of apparently unrelated representation issues can now be understood. This procedure allows scholarship to move well beyond what have previously been cloudy and confusing debates aimed at defining the virtues and perils of parliamentarism. This new empirical investigation includes all 17 West European parliamentary democracies. These countries are compared in a series of cross-national tables and figures, and 17 country chapters provide a wealth of information on four discrete stages in the delegation process: delegation from voters to parliamentary representatives, delegation from parliament to the prime minister and cabinet, delegation within the cabinet, and delegation from cabinet ministers to civil servants. Each chapter illustrates how political parties serve as bonding instruments, which align incentives and permit citizen control of the policy process. This is complemented by a consideration of external constraints, such as courts, central banks, corporatism, and the European Union, which can impinge on national-level democratic delegation. The concluding chapters go on to consider how well the problems of delegation and accountability are solved in these countries. Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies provides an unprecedented guide to contemporary European parliamentary democracies. As democratic governance is transformed at the dawn of the twenty-first century, it illustrates the important challenges faced by the parliamentary democracies of Western Europe.
What kind of criteria should an appropriate model for the democratization of governance beyond the state fulfil? Can we identify elements of an ideal type for democratic governance beyond the state? Just like the attempt to identify and evaluate the supposed democratic deficit which is generally associated with the internationalization of governance, any discussion about its redemocratization requires a set of appropriate normative criteria which must be compatible with the specific milieu in which governance beyond the state takes place. Any judgement about and preference for certain options heavily depend on how we conceptionalize this milieu and on whether we regard it as receptive to certain standards and requirements of democratic theory in the first place. That said, there is no way around conceptionalizing the space to be democratized in an adequate way before we can develop the normative criteria which may be applicable to it. Even the diagnosis of a supposed democratic deficit will have little persuasive power if we fail to state clearly which demands in regard to legitimation can adequately be brought forward at all if we are dealing with governance beyond the state.
Politische Steuerung wurde in dem Augenblick zum Gegenstand der Forschung, als sie in den 60er Jahren dieses Jahrhunderts zu einem verbreitet wahrgenommenen praktischen Problem wurde. Einmal zum Thema geworden, entwickelte sich die Theorie politischer Steuerung nach einem für die interne Dynamik der Wissenschaftsentwicklung typischen Muster, nämlich als Abfolge von Thematisierungen verschiedener Aspekte eines komplexen Phänomens. Zuerst wurde die Schuld am diagnostizierten staatlichen Steuerungsversagen in organisatorischen und kognitiven Defiziten gesucht, und es entwickelte sich in den 70er Jahren eine umfangreiche Planungsliteratur (vgl. u. a. Mayntz/Scharpf 1973). Als die Planungseuphorie zerstob, wandte sich das Interesse anderen Komponenten staatlicher Steuerungsfähigkeit zu: zum einen instrumentellen und institutionellen Aspekten der Politikentwicklung und zum anderen den Problemen beim Gesetzesvollzug.1 So entstand eher additiv als aus einem einheitlichen Konzept systematisch abgeleitet eine Theorie, die die Voraussetzungen wirksamer politischer Steuerung thematisierte. Die einzelnen Komponenten dieser Theorie blieben allerdings in recht verschiedenartige Diskurse eingebettet.
The "meta-governance" of policy networks is crucial for understanding contemporary governance and public sector management more generally. This importance is true at all levels of government, even at the international level. These initial ass ertions about meta-governance are based on three assumptions about the manner in which contemporary governance is organized and conducted. The first assumption is that a great deal of the ac tual work of governing in contemporary societies is actually performed by organizations and individu als who are not explicitly within the public sector itself. Even if one does not take a more ex treme position about the dominance and/or the superiority of networks in the process of governing , it is difficult to deny the importance of social actors in the conduct of contemporary governance (S orenson, 2002; Koppenjan and Klijn, 2004). In the development of policy, and perhaps most importantly in the actual delivery of public programs, non-State actors are now heavily and cruc ially involved in providing governance. Those devolved structures may be able to make some decisions and to perform some services, but they will tend to do so with a rather narrow perspective on, and consideration of the goals of the government, and of the society, consid ered more broadly. These structures, and even individuals, responsible for activities performed i n the name of the public may be able to make decisions, but those decisions are often self-servi ng, and made with little regard for the "public interest". 1 Some of the network literature (see Klijn and Ko ppenjan, 2003) tends to assume that the public interest, and a broader sense of public purpose, will emerge from the interactions of network members, There is, however, no reason to assume that members of networks become more saintly as a function of having joined these s tructures, so that the pursuit of private interest will remain a central feature of the policy process . The second assumption is that the meta-governance of networks is only one aspect of the meta-governance issue. Increasingly territorially decentralized governments and multi-level governance arrangements (Hooghe and Marks, 2004; Bache and Flinders, 2004), combined with the importance of networks and of forms of connecti ons between the public and the private sectors, make the need for meta-governnace all the more apparent. Some of the same governance, and 1 Defining this term in any operational manner is at best difficult, but it is still possible to say tha t some decisions are being made more from a self-serving perspective while others are include a more general range of considerations. Further, in principle there is no reason for networks or other private actors to be more other-regarding in their actions. They are involved in part because they will pursue the interests of their members.
One of the most striking features of contemporary EU governance is the ubiquity of Commission and member-state committees known under the rubric of "comitology." The significance of these committees, however, remains a matter of dispute, with two distinct theoretical images of comitology being put forward in the literature. The first of these approaches, drawn from sociological institutionalism and constructivism, suggests that EU committees provide a forum in which national and supranational experts meet and deliberate in a search for the most efficient solutions to common policy problems. A second view, derived from rational choice theory, depicts comitology committees as control mechanisms designed by EU member governments to supervise the Commission in its executive duties. This article engages in a direct competitive test of these two approaches, examining the empirical record of institutional choice of comitology committees and demonstrating that the weight of both quantitative and qualitative evidence supports rationalist hypotheses. Deliberation may well take place under certain conditions within comitology committees, but it is likely that such deliberation takes place only within a relatively narrow domain, and under conditions yet to be identified.
This article deals with the concept and the problem of political competition and collusion with particular reference to democratic accountability and responsiveness. It starts with a discussion of the essence of competitive interaction with respect to other types of conflictual, negotiative or cooperative interactions. The relationship between competition and various conceptions of democracy is then discussed, identifying four independent dimensions: `contestability' (conditions of entry); `availability' (demand's elasticity); `decidability' (the political offer); and `vulnerability' (incumbents' safety of tenure). The paper concludes by discussing the relationships between competitive and collusive pushes in all aspects of political interactions, and criticizing the formal optimized models that fail to see the impossibility of parallel maximization of all dimensions of competition. Competition rests on a vast set of non-competitive preconditions and needs constraining-sustaining conditions, as it is unlikely to be effective in a world of rational, maximizing, selfish independent actors as much as it is in a world of communal closed groups.
According to the prevailing concept of 'dual legitimacy', national parliaments constitute an important source of democratic legitimacy in the EU. Reinforced parliamentary scrutiny and control of the national representatives in the Council of Ministers seem to contribute to a more democratic Europe. However, if parliaments tie the hands of their governments when they negotiate at the European level, effectiveness of policy-making is jeopardised and national interests may be defeated. Realising this dilemma, members of national parliaments develop strategies to deal with conflicting requirements of national party politics and European policy-making. These strategies and their implications for democracy are influenced by the path-dependent institutional changes in national parliamentary systems. They therefore vary considerably between member states.
This article investigates the allocation of regulatory authority in the EU. By introducing the concept of a ‘regulatory regime’, it criticizes not only earlier accounts of the EU ‘regulatory state’, but also current delegation approaches. As a starting point, it identifies a dilemma for the EU regulatory policy. Despite the rising need for uniform EU-level rules in the internal market, the bulk of formal powers and the institutional focus of regulatory activities continue to be located at the national level. This results in a supranational regulatory gap. Our thesis is that this gap is partly filled by transnational regulatory networks. Under certain conditions, regulatory networks offer a back road to the informal Europeanization of government regulation. However, the informalization of governance is vulnerable to strong distributive conflict, and, if effective, it raises unresolved problems of democratic legitimacy.Edgar Grande, Chair in Comparative Politics, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Geschwister-Scholl-Institute für Politische Wissenschaft, Oettingenstr. 67, D-80538 München, Germany. Tel: (89) 2180-9071. Fax: (89) 2180-9072. email: grande@lrz.uni-muenchen.de.
This article begins by describing the major characteristics and the origins of multi-level governance (MLG). It then discusses the alleged novelty of MLG practices, whether MLG achieves its goals in terms of policy efficiency and acceptance, and the possible consequences of governance networks for the democratic quality of political decisions. In relation to these matters, it concludes that there is a gap between the intensity of theoretical debate and a lack of systematic empirical research. It thus seeks to provide some indications about promising avenues for ‘second generation’ research that would allow us to give more substantial answers to controversial questions concerning MLG.European Political Science (2005) 4, 316–327. doi:10.1057/palgrave.eps.2210032
Journal of Democracy 15.4 (2004) 47-60
When Terry Karl and I hit upon the concept of accountability as the key to the broadest and most widely applicable definition of "modern representative political democracy," our effort in 1991 met with a surprising amount of indifference or even hostility. In the last ten years, however, there has been a veritable explosion of scholarly concern with the notion of political accountability, not to mention such cognate concepts as "corporate social accountability," "communitarian responsiveness," and "individual moral responsibility."
Generically speaking, political accountability is a relationship between two sets of persons or (more often) organizations in which the former agree to keep the latter informed, to offer them explanations for decisions made, and to submit to any predetermined sanctions that they may impose. The latter, meanwhile, are subject to the command of the former, must provide required information, explain obedience or disobedience to the commands thereof, and accept the consequences for things done or left undone. Accountability, in short, implies an exchange of responsibilities and potential sanctions between rulers and citizens, made all the more complicated by the fact that a varied and competitive set of representatives typically interposes between the two. Needless to say, there are many caveats, loose linkages, and role reversals in this relationship, so that its product is almost always contested. Information can be selective and skewed; explanations can be deflected to other actors; sanctions are rarely applied and can be simply ignored.
All stable political regimes probably have some predictable form of accountability to some type of constituency. Sultanistic autocracies have their coteries and cadres. Military dictatorships have their juntas and deals among the different armed services. Even absolute monarchs are supposed to be accountable to God—not to mention more earthly dynastic and marital concerns. What democracy has that these do not is citizens—a constituency covering the entire country and populated (these days) by virtually all adults minus resident foreigners. Moreover, in terms of political accountability, each citizen has the same rights and obligations, that is, to be informed (with limited exceptions) about official actions, to hear justifications for them, to judge how well or poorly they are carried out, and to act accordingly—electorally or otherwise.
What makes the role of citizens increasingly complex is that they have had to rely more heavily than ever on specialized representatives, that is, on agents who in turn act as principals when it comes to ensuring that elected or appointed rulers are held accountable. As if this were not complex enough, these very same agents-cum-principals may have ruled in the past and probably aspire to rule again in the future. Meanwhile, citizens go from being principals to being agents when they are obliged to conform to official decisions that they may have opposed or did not even know about.
However complex it may be, political accountability must be institutionalized if it is to work effectively. This means that it has to be embedded in a mutually understood and preestablished set of rules. Some of these may be formalized in constitutions, legal codes, or sworn oaths, but political accountability is not the same as legal, financial, or ethical accountability. Rulers can be investigated and held to account for actions that did not break the law or result in illicit personal enrichment or violate common mores. They may have simply made bad political choices that failed to produce their intended effect or cost vastly more than initially announced. And rulers can even be held accountable for acts of omission as well as commission in somewhat the same way citizens can, provided that the rules were made by previously established consent.
Finally, it should be noted that the process of political accountability still goes on even when incumbents win, as most often they do. The exchanges of information, justification, and judgment that make up the ordinary cycle of accountability are less obtrusive than the "big bang" of "throwing the rascals out," but no less real and significant for all that. Thus it would be wrong to think that only an...
The European Union (EU) is a "composite' democracy which features diverse forms of democratic legitimation: vertical legitimation through parliamentary representation in the European Parliament; executive representation through delegates of democratically elected governments in the Council of Ministers; horizontal mutual control among member states; associative and expert representation (delegation) in policy networks; and, finally, individual rights-based legitimacy. The argument developed in this article will proceed in four steps: first, the various strands of democratic legitimation are described while locating transparency, and access to information in the overall context of attempts at democratic legitimation in the EU. In the second step, the programme to increase transparency is specified in more detail. In the third step, a discussion gauges the compatibility of the relationship between access to information and transparency, on the one hand, and the central components of European democratic legitimation, on the other. In a fourth and final step, normative conclusions will be drawn with respect to the possible functions that access to information and transparency - bearing in mind the compatibility of the individual components - serve in the context of Europe's composite democracy.
There is a puzzlein EU institutional politics. On the record all core decision - makers are devoted to improving democratic legitimacy but institutional reforms are instead contributing to further diluting the link between the citizens and the decision - makers in Europe. The article argues that this contradiction should not be attributed to 'cheap talk' but above all should be seen as the outcome of framing. Interest and rational choice theories cannot explain the inconsistencies and deficiencies of reform strategies. Framing offers a more promising approach to evaluating what kind of conceptual models will prevail and why some gain precedence over others. Framing is a process of discriminating between various options. It follows a certain decision - making heuristic, it is highly context - specific, and it is dependent on the particular attributes of the issue at stake. A more systematic analysis of the dynamics of the framing process will help us to understand better the deficiencies of the institutional reforms.
The rejection of the Constitutional Treaty and the various events following the negative referenda provide an excellent occasion for reconsidering the real meaning of European integration. Paradoxically, the integration process is often praised for its clumsy and ultimately unsuccessful attempts to mimic the nation state, while its truly important contribution to European civilization – the establishment of a supranational constitutional order – is belittled or even ignored. An example of this distorted vision is the debate on the so-called democratic deficit – a condition which could be easily corrected if a majority of Europeans supported a supranational federal state. Since it is obvious that no such majority exists, now or in the foreseeable future, the ‘democratic deficit’, however defined, is the price we pay for wishing to integrate our national economies while preserving the core of national sovereignty. The current crisis is methodological rather than systemic: it amounts to a rejection of the stealthy approach to European integration – cryptofederalism – which has entailed the triumph of process over outcome. The legitimacy problem of the EU can be solved by limiting, rather than continuously expanding, the competences of the supranational institutions.The institutional system established by the founding fathers was not designed for effective policy-making, but largely to pursue objectives of negative integration.
Each of the main sectors of society—the state, the market and the voluntary non-profit sector—is characterized by a distinctive accountability regime, focusing on a different subject of accountability (actions, results and intentions, respectively) and a different mechanism of accountability (hierarchy, competition and cooperative networking, respectively). Those different regimes can complement one another, enhancing the democratic accountability of the system overall. They can also undercut one another, if their differences are not respected. Bringing the Third Sector under a market-style accountability regime, through “public-private partnerships” based on competitive tendering, undermines the distinctive contribution that the Third Sector might make.
Along with the traditional “promissory” form of representation, empirical political scientists have recently analyzed several new forms, called here “anticipatory,” “gyroscopic,” and “surrogate” representation. None of these more recently recognized forms meets the criteria for democratic accountability developed for promissory representation, yet each generates a set of normative criteria by which it can be judged. These criteria are systemic, in contrast to the dyadic criteria appropriate for promissory representation. They are deliberative rather than aggregative. They are plural rather than singular.
Various schools of research in public policy (the literature on ‘governance’ and its continental counterparts) are converging to focus on the growth of policy styles based on cooperation and partnership in networks, instead of on vertical control by the state. This article focuses on issues of democratic accountability and responsiveness with these governance arrangements. It argues that until recently the legitimacy of governance networks was not at the forefront of theoretical developments, even though the ‘democratic deficit’ of governance is problematic both for normative and for pragmatic reasons. There is now increased sensitivity to this problem, but the remedies presented in the literature are unsatisfactory, and critiques of governance presuppose a somewhat idealised image of representative democracy in terms of accountability or responsiveness of decision-makers. They also fail to offer adequate solutions to some of the central legitimacy problems of policy-making in complex societies.
Political and managerial processes are creating polycentric networks that transcend the traditional ideas of jurisdictional integrity in state-centric systems. Jurisdictional integrity refers to the political and legal competence of a unit of government to operate within a spatial and functional realm. An intrinsic element of jurisdictional integrity in a democratic system is that citizens are enabled to give consent to and pass judgment on the exercise of authority by that governmental entity. The concept of jurisdictional integrity is shown to apply differentially in relation to the traditional institutions of government in comparison with the emergent complex of quasi-governmental agencies, special purpose bodies and multi-organizational collaborations. Distinctions are drawn between club, agency and polity entities within this emergent organizational field. Problems to be faced in the design of institutions for network governance under conditions of polycentrism are identified and solutions reviewed. The potential of consociationalism to enable collective decision making across a polycentric system is highlighted. Informal norms are shown to be essential in enabling such a system for network governance to operate effectively.
This article argues that the irresistible rise of Comitology is an institutional response to the deep-seated tensions between the dual supranational and intergovernmentalist structure of the Community on the one hand, and its problem-solving tasks on the other. Comitology has accordingly provided a forum in which problems are addressed through evolving and novel processes of interest formation and decision-making. However, neither legal nor political science have been able properly to evaluate the workings of the committee system, both disciplines remaining trapped within normative structures and traditional methodologies ill-suited to the analysis of these institutional innovations. As a consequence, this article advocates the trans-disciplinary study of Comitology, and furthermore argues that the two disciplines might be drawn together by the concept of deliberative supranationalism: being on the one hand a normative approach which seeks both to preserve the legitimacy of national democracies and to set limits upon the traditional Nation State within a supranational community; and on the other, a theoretical tool which is nonetheless responsive to and accomodating of real-world phenomena.
Accountability has long been both a key theme and a key problem in constitutional scholarship. The centrality of the accountability debates in contemporary political and legal discourse is a product of the difficulty of balancing the autonomy given to those exercising public power with appropriate control. The traditional mechanisms of accountability to Parliament and to the courts are problematic because in a complex administrative state, characterized by widespread delegation of discretion to actors located far from the centre of government, the conception of centralized responsibility upon which traditional accountability mechanisms are based is often fictional. The problems of accountability have been made manifest by the transformations wrought on public administration by the new public management (NPM) revolution which have further fragmented the public sector. In this article it is argued that if public lawyers are to be reconciled to these changes then it will be through recognizing the potential for additional or extended mechanisms of accountability in supplementing or displacing traditional accountability functions. The article identifies and develops two such extended accountability models: interdependence and redundancy.
Throughout the 1990s, hierarchical administrative governance structures have been replaced by self-governing networks for various motives, one of which is to improve the authenticity and democratic quality of public decisions. Thus, “new governance” has been praised for its propensity to provide a plurality of civil society organizations with access to the decision process. This article explores these claims based on the case of drug policy in Swiss cities. We show that self-governing networks indeed seem to have increased the involvement of civil society organizations in the policy process. However, we also find evidence that self-governing networks may in the longer run induce state control over civil society organizations, thus ultimately reducing associative pluralism. They do so either by imposing a policy paradigm or by excluding actors who do not comply with the dominant paradigm from the networks. We conclude by arguing that self-organizing networks should not be dismissed, given that former hierarchical bureaucratic approaches to drug-related problems have failed even worse. Rather, their long-term effects should be subject to further examination aimed at developing adequate responses to their shortcomings.
It has been argued that the EU suffers from serious accountability deficits. But how can we establish the existence of accountability deficits? This article tries to get to grips with the appealing but elusive concept of accountability by asking three types of questions. First a conceptual one: what exactly is meant by accountability? In this article the concept of accountability is used in a rather narrow sense: a relationship between an actor and a forum, in which the actor has an obligation to explain and to justify his or her conduct, the forum can pose questions and pass judgement, and the actor may face consequences. The second question is analytical: what types of accountability are involved? A series of dimensions of accountability are discerned that can be used to describe the various accountability relations and arrangements that can be found in the different domains of European governance. The third question is evaluative: how should we assess these accountability arrangements? The article provides three evaluative perspectives: a democratic, a constitutional and a learning perspective. Each of these perspectives may produce different types of accountability deficits.
This paper outlines the elements of a pluralistic system of accountability with regard to one of the most ambitious institutional innovations in global governance: multisectoral public policy networks. These networks bring together the public sector (governments and international organizations), civil society and business around issues ranging from corruption, climate change and fighting malaria to environmental and labour standards. We argue that multisectoral networks should be embedded in a pluralistic system of accountability making use of a combination of accountability mechanisms on a number of dimensions (actors, process, outcomes). The paper discusses some of the key conceptual, empirical and practical challenges of a ‘learning model’ of accountability in networks.
How might we think about democratic governance? This paper distinguishes between system governance and radical democracy. System governance borrows the language of radical democracy while missing its spirit. It advocates increased participation through networks because new institutionalists suggest networks are an efficient means of service delivery. It advocates increased consultation to build consensus because communitarians suggest consensus is needed for effective political institutions. System governance is, then, a top-down discourse based on the alleged expertise of social scientists. Radical democrats concentrate instead on the self-government of citizens. Instead of the incorporation of established groups in networks, they promote a pluralism within which aspects of governance are handed over to associations in civil society. And instead of consultation prior to decision making, they promote a dialogue in which citizens play an active role in making and implementing public policy.
This article presents results from a Danish national Deliberative Poll on the single European currency. A representative sample of 364 Danish citizens assembled to deliberate on Denmark's participation in the single currency. As a quasi-experiment, the Deliberative Poll is an example of deliberative democracy. Four research questions regarding these deliberative processes are analyzed: openness and access, the quality of deliberation, efficiency and effectiveness, and publicity and accountability. The participants' responses reflect a deliberative process characterized by considerable changes in political opinions as the Poll proceeds, increase in level of knowledge and an improved ability to form reasoned opinions. A mutual understanding on the subject matter prevailed among the participants. At the same time, self-interest and domination also appeared during the deliberative process. The article emphasizes the need for further elaboration of the theory of deliberative democracy so that it better reflects these features of ‘real-life’ politics.
The search for responsibility in complex organisations often seems an impossible undertaking. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach combining law, social science, ethics and organisational design, Mark Bovens analyses the reasons for this, and offers possible solutions. He begins by examining the problem of ‘many hands’ - because so many people contribute in so many different ways, it is very difficult to determine who is accountable for organisational behaviour. Four possible solutions - corporate, hierarchical, collective and individual accountability - are analysed from normative, empirical and practical perspectives. Bovens argues that individual accountability is the most promising solution, but only if individuals have the chance to behave responsibly. The book then explores the implications of this approach. What does it mean to be a ‘responsible’ employee or official? When is it legitimate to disobey the orders of superiors? What institutional designs might be most appropriate?
The study of comparative federalism is often hampered by the diverse range of federal institutional arrangements in practice, as well as the ambiguity surrounding the concept of federalism. This article identifies three main conceptual approaches to federalism – sociological, constitutional, and governmental – then proposes a revised governmental approach that takes account of the institutional effects of federalism, for application in comparative politics research. Minimally defined, all federations are products of institutional rules that create separate territorial spheres of authority. This article compares Canada, the United States, Australia, Austria, Germany and Switzerland along two key institutional dimensions that structure politics in the federal state: resource allocation, and the representation of constituent units in federal-level decision-making.
Der Beitrag zeigt, dass die demokratietheoretische Fundierung korporatistischer Arrangements, die auf der nationalstaatlichen Ebene noch durch eine Verschränkung von territorialer Repräsentation (über Parteien und Parlamente) und funktionaler Repräsentation (über korporatistische Arrangements) hergestellt werden kann, auf höheren Ebenen der Politik jenseits des Nationalstaates nicht greifen kann. Wie am Beispiel der Diskussion über die Möglichkeiten und Grenzen einer "assoziativen" Demokratie in Europa gezeigt wird, bleibt die demokratietheoretische Legitimation korporatistischer Arrangements jenseits des Nationalstaates eine prekäre Angelegenheit.
Abstract This article considers the issue of public accountability of transnational corporations (TNCs) in the light of the experiences of the past 30 years. It discusses the problem of accountability of corporations in general and examines the accountability gaps that are particularly severe as a result of the global reach and power of TNCs, notably those related to the collusion between government officials and TNCs, to regulatory competition, to state weakness and breakdown, and to political subversion. Then existing attempts to close those gaps are assessed, including intergovernmental cooperation, business ‘self-regulation’ and initiatives that involve nongovernmental organizations and supranational agencies in defining standards of conduct for companies and monitoring their compliance.
This chapter aims at reconstructing the meaning of the concept of political accountability as we currently use it. In essence, the author claims that it carries two basic connotations – answerability, the obligation of public officials to inform about and to explain what they are doing, and enforcement, the capacity of accounting agencies to impose sanctions on powerholders who have violated their public duties. This two-dimensional structure of meaning makes the concept a broad and inclusive one which within its wide and loose boundaries embraces (or at least overlaps with) lots of other terms – such as surveillance, monitoring, oversight, control, checks, restraint, public exposure, and punishment – that we employ otherwise to describe efforts at rendering the exercise of power a rule-guided enterprise.