Accountability

Defining Accountability

Though the core sense of accountability, the obligation of the accountor to answer for the performance of duties, is uncontroversial, disagreement occurs over what should be added to that core. Most analyses also include the capacity of the account holder to impose sanctions or other remedies on the accountor as a necessary complement to full accountability. However, some versions confine accountability to the initial informing and discussing stages, omitting the requirement for any rectification. In effect, they equate accountability with transparency, another popular term with which accountability is frequently linked. Certainly, in complex modern systems of public accountability, [Page 2]some accountability mechanisms, such as parliamentary inquiry or media investigation, can provide transparency but lack the capacity for imposing sanctions, leaving that function to other agencies such as courts or the executive. But transparency on its own, with no prospect of correction or other adverse consequences, falls short of full accountability.

In its core sense, accountability, like accounting itself, is essentially retrospective or ex post, in that it is concerned with information and explanation about past actions of the accountor. Discussion about future actions is, therefore, not, strictly speaking, an exercise in accountability. However, in a continuing relationship between principal and agent, ex post can easily overlap with ex ante, as in election campaigns when incumbent representatives not only defend their past actions but also outline their future plans. Indeed, some theorists have wanted to distinguish two types or aspects of accountability, ex post (retrospective) and ex ante (prospective) accountability, while others have included all communication between political leaders and the public as part of an ongoing accountability dialogue. Such usage, while understandable because of the obligations of democratic governments to engage in continuing discussion with their citizens, extends accountability beyond its normal focus of answering for past actions. Similarly, government consultation with stakeholders about future policy certainly helps keep politicians and bureaucrats in touch with relevant sections of public opinion, but it does not necessarily imply accountability in the strict sense of accounting for previous decisions.

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