Accountability (Political Science)

There are two contradicting views of the origin of this concept. Some scholars argue that accountability is a product of classical democracy dating back to the 8th century BCE. The contrasting view contends that classical democracy itself arose from a concept of accountability that has been traced back to the 5th-century BCE Athenian legal institution of euthyna, literally translated as “the action of setting straight” (von Dornum, 1997). Euthyna was a public procedural mechanism for all officials, which provided the citizens with a full public account of all actions taken by any official. If auditors suspected wrongfulness on the part of the official, sanctions would be imposed.

Modern discourse on accountability posits itself in democracy and, within it, presumes a legitimate relationship between two actors, be they individuals, institutions, or nation-states, in which an actor has the right to hold another to a set of standards and responsibilities. If the obligations are not met, a sanction, whether positive or negative, maybe imposed on the agent. It may be noted that the accountability mechanism always operates ex post facto. The sanction punishes the unauthorized or illegitimate use of power as deemed fit by the delegated institution. For more information, see von Dornum (1997) and Grant and Keohane (2005).