The Politics of Public Accountability

The Politics of Public Accountability PDF Author: Guillaume Fontaine
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9783030289942
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
This book seeks to consistently explain the role of ideas and institutions in policy outcomes, and addresses the problem of how resource nationalism causes a deficit of public accountability in oil producing countries from Latin America and the Caribbean. The authors present a causal mechanism linking ideas and policy outcomes through institutional arrangements, focusing on policy design to describe the role of instruments selection and combination in improving or reducing public accountability through agenda setting, policy formulation, cross-sectorial coordination and political interplays.

The Oxford Handbook Public Accountability

The Oxford Handbook Public Accountability PDF Author: Mark Bovens
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199641250
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 737

Book Description
Drawing on the best scholars in the field from around the world, this handbook showcases conceptual and normative as well as the empirical approaches in public accountability studies.

Accountability through Public Opinion

Accountability through Public Opinion PDF Author: Sina Odugbemi
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821385569
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 539

Book Description
This books analyses the role of public opinion for generating genuine citizen demand for accountability, providing case studies from around the world to illustrate how public opinion forces governments to be accountable.

Public Opinion and Democratic Accountability

Public Opinion and Democratic Accountability PDF Author: Vincent L. Hutchings
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691225664
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 188

Book Description
Much of public opinion research over the past several decades suggests that the American voters are woefully uninformed about politics and thus unable to fulfill their democratic obligations. Arguing that this perception is faulty, Vincent Hutchings shows that, under the right political conditions, voters are surprisingly well informed on the issues that they care about and use their knowledge to hold politicians accountable. Though Hutchings is not the first political scientist to contend that the American public is more politically engaged than it is often given credit for, previous scholarship--which has typically examined individual and environmental factors in isolation--has produced only limited evidence of an attentive electorate. Analyzing broad survey data as well as the content of numerous Senate and gubernatorial campaigns involving such issues as race, labor, abortion, and defense, Hutchings demonstrates that voters are politically engaged when politicians and the media discuss the issues that the voters perceive as important. Hutchings finds that the media--while far from ideal--do provide the populace with information regarding the responsiveness of elected representatives and that groups of voters do monitor this information when "their" issues receive attention. Thus, while the electorate may be generally uninformed about and uninterested in public policy, a complex interaction of individual motivation, group identification, and political circumstance leads citizens concerned about particular issues to obtain knowledge about their political leaders and use that information at the ballot box.

The Politics of Public Accountability

The Politics of Public Accountability PDF Author: Guillaume Fontaine
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030289958
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Book Description
This book seeks to consistently explain the role of ideas and institutions in policy outcomes, and addresses the problem of how resource nationalism causes a deficit of public accountability in oil producing countries from Latin America and the Caribbean. The authors present a causal mechanism linking ideas and policy outcomes through institutional arrangements, focusing on policy design to describe the role of instruments selection and combination in improving or reducing public accountability through agenda setting, policy formulation, cross-sectorial coordination and political interplays.

Transparency in Politics and the Media

Transparency in Politics and the Media PDF Author: Nigel Bowles
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857734598
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
Increasingly governments around the world are experimenting with initiatives in transparency or 'open government'. These involve a variety of measures including the announcement of more user-friendly government websites, greater access to government data, the extension of freedom of information legislation and broader attempts to involve the public in government decision making. However, the role of the media in these initiatives has not hitherto been examined. This volume analyses the challenges and opportunities presented to journalists as they attempt to hold governments accountable in an era of professed transparency. In examining how transparency and open government initiatives have affected the accountability role of the press in the US and the UK, it also explores how policies in these two countries could change in the future to help journalists hold governments more accountable. This volume will be essential reading for all practising journalists, for students of journalism or politics, and for policymakers.

Congress, the Press, and Political Accountability

Congress, the Press, and Political Accountability PDF Author: R. Douglas Arnold
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691126070
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 293

Book Description
Congress, the Press, and Political Accountability is the first large-scale examination of how local media outlets cover members of the United States Congress. Douglas Arnold asks: do local newspapers provide the information citizens need in order to hold representatives accountable for their actions in office? In contrast with previous studies, which largely focused on the campaign period, he tests various hypotheses about the causes and consequences of media coverage by exploring coverage during an entire congressional session. Using three samples of local newspapers from across the country, Arnold analyzes all coverage over a two-year period--every news story, editorial, opinion column, letter, and list. First he investigates how twenty-five newspapers covered twenty-five local representatives; and next, how competing newspapers in six cities covered their corresponding legislators. Examination of an even larger sample, sixty-seven newspapers and 187 representatives, shows why some newspapers cover legislators more thoroughly than do other papers. Arnold then links the coverage data with a large public opinion survey to show that the volume of coverage affects citizens' awareness of representatives and challengers. The results show enormous variation in coverage. Some newspapers cover legislators frequently, thoroughly, and accessibly. Others--some of them famous for their national coverage--largely ignore local representatives. The analysis also confirms that only those incumbents or challengers in the most competitive races, and those who command huge sums of money, receive extensive coverage.

The Politics of Accountability in the Modern State

The Politics of Accountability in the Modern State PDF Author: Matthew Flinders
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351800825
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 388

Book Description
This title was first published in 2001: In this compelling work, Matthew Flinders examines how far alternative forms of accountability have evolved and the extent to which they remedy the current shortcomings of the parliamentary system. Adopting a pluralistic perspective, this exploration of the accountability of the core executive is clearly grounded in research methodology, thus ensuring the book makes a valid, incisive contribution to the literature. Features include: - A detailed study of the location of power and mechanisms of accountability in modern government which challenges the largely prosaic existing literature - Useful summaries of the key tensions and trends within constitutional infrastructure - A new and refreshing approach to the study of central government - Insightful critiques of major governmental policies This intriguing volume will be of interest to undergraduates, post-graduates and lecturers for courses on legislative studies, central government reform, public administration, British politics and research methods.

The Accountability State

The Accountability State PDF Author: Nadia Hilliard
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700623981
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
Public accountability is critical to a democracy. But as government becomes ever more complex, with bureaucracy growing ever deeper and wider, how can these multiplying numbers of unelected bureaucrats be held accountable? The answer, more often than not, comes in the form of inspectors general, monitors largely independent of the management of the agencies to which they are attached. How, and whether, this system works in America is what Nadia Hilliard investigates in The Accountability State. Exploring the significance of our current collective obsession with accountability, her book helpfully shifts the issue from the technical domain of public administration to the context of American political development. Inspectors general, though longtime fixtures of government and the military, first came into prominence in the United States in the 1970s in the wake of evidence of wrongdoing in the Nixon administration. Their number and importance has only increased in tandem with concerns about abuses of power and simple inefficiency in expanding government agencies. Some of the IGs Hilliard examines serve agencies chiefly vulnerable to fraud and waste, while others, such as national security IGs, monitor the management of potentially rights-threatening activities. By some conventional measures, IGs are largely successful, whether in savings, prosecutions, suspensions, disbarments, or exposure of legally or ethically questionable activities. However, her work reveals that these measures fail to do justice to the range of effects that IGs can have on American democracy, and offers a new framework with which to evaluate and understand them. Within her larger study, Hilliard looks specifically at inspectors general in the US Departments of Justice, State, and Homeland Security and asks why their effectiveness varies as much as it does, with the IGs at Justice and Homeland Security proving far more successful than the IG at State.

Accountability Politics

Accountability Politics PDF Author: Jonathan Fox
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN: 0199208859
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 451

Book Description
How can the seeds of accountability ever grow in authoritarian environments? This book explores the how civil society "thickens" by comparing two decades of rural citizens' struggles to hold the Mexican state accountable, exploring both change and continuity before, during and after national electoral turning points.