Offers a comprehensive critique of the spread of auditing in both the public and private sectors and shows how to achieve a better balance between audits and other forms of accountability. Michael Power is Professor of Accounting at the LSE. ‘A rare attempt to stand back and question the very notion of auditing and the place it has assumed in our society.’ Financial Times

The Audit Explosion

Scholars of the European Union have analyzed the EU's legitimacy mainly in terms of two normative criteria: output effectiveness for the people and input participation by the people. This article argues that missing from this theorization is what goes on in the ‘black box’ of governance between input and output, or ‘throughput’. Throughput consists of governance processes with the people, analyzed in terms of their efficacy, accountability, transparency, inclusiveness and openness to interest consultation. This article defines and discusses this third normative criterion as well as the interaction effects of all three normative criteria. It does so by considering EU scholars' institutional and constructivist analyses of EU legitimacy as well as empirical cases of and proposed solutions to the EU's democracy problems. The article also suggests that unlike input and output, which affect public perceptions of legitimacy both when they are increased or decreased, throughput tends to be most salient when negat...

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Democracy and Legitimacy in the European Union Revisited: Input, Output and ‘Throughput’

Study in administration

This paper distinguishes between two main concepts of accountability: accountability as a virtue and accountability as a mechanism. In the former case, accountability is used primarily as a normative concept, as a set of standards for the evaluation of the behaviour of public actors. Accountability or, more precisely, being accountable, is seen as a positive quality in organisations or officials. Hence, accountability studies often focus on normative issues, on the assessment of the actual and active behaviour of public agents. In the latter case, accountability is used in a narrower, descriptive sense. It is seen as an institutional relation or arrangement in which an actor can be held to account by a forum. Here, the locus of accountability studies is not the behaviour of public agents, but the way in which these institutional arrangements operate. The present paper argues that distinguishing more clearly between these two concepts of accountability can solve at least some of the current conceptual conf...

Two Concepts of Accountability: Accountability as a Virtue and as a Mechanism

The legitimacy and accountability of polycentric regulatory regimes, particularly at the transnational level, has been severely criticized, and the search is on to find ways in which they can be enhanced. This paper argues that before developing even more proposals, we need to pay far greater attention to the dynamics of accountability and legitimacy relationships, and to how those in regulatory regimes respond to them. The article thus first seeks to develop a closer analysis of three key elements of legitimacy and accountability relationships which it suggests are central to these dynamics: The role of the institutional environment in the construction of legitimacy, the dialectical nature of accountability relationships, and the communicative structures through which accountability occurs and legitimacy is constructed. Second, the article explores how organizations in regulatory regimes respond, or are likely to respond, to multiple legitimacy and accountability claims, and how they themselves seek to build legitimacy in complex and dynamic situations. The arguments developed here are not normative: There is no ‘‘grand solution’’ proposed to the normative questions of when regulators should be considered legitimate or how to make them so. Rather, the article seeks to analyse the dynamics of legitimacy and accountability relationships as they occur in an attempt to build a more realistic foundation on which grander ‘‘how to’’ proposals can be built. For until we understand these dynamics, the grander, normative arguments risk being simply pipe dreams – diverting, but in the end making little difference.

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Constructing and contesting legitimacy and accountability in polycentric regulatory regimes

There is currently much interest in the question whether a global administrative law is coming into being and, if so, whether this is desirable or otherwise. This paper addresses the question of principles for a global administrative law. It considers four potential sources and their suitability as a foundation for a global administrative law system: first, the largely procedural principles that have emerged in national administrative law systems, notably the principle of legality and due process principles (Section 3); second, the set of rule of law values, promoted by proponents of free trade and economic liberalism (Section 4); third, the good governance values, and more particularly transparency, participation and accountability, promoted by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (Section 5); and finally, human rights values (Section 6). The paper ends on a sceptical note, concluding that a universal set of administrative law principles is difficult to identify and not especially desirable. First, administrative law is primarily a Western construct, protective of Western interests. It may impact unfavourably on developing economies. Secondly, the evolution of global administrative law in adjudicative forums is leading to an undesirable 'juridification of the political process'. The paper concludes that diversity and pluralism are preferable.

Global Administrative Law: The Quest for Principles and Values

Introduction 1. Thinking About Accountability 2. Some Accident Blackspots 3. The Power House 5. Accountability through Audit 6. Accountability through Law

Accountability in the European Union

This article addresses problems of accountability in the system of multilevel governance, organised around networks, as it exists in the EU. An ‘accountability deficit’ arises when gaps are left by the accountability machinery of the several levels of government, supranational and national. This article suggests a new evaluative framework based on the concept of ‘accountability network’, questioning the hierarchical and pyramidal assumptions that presently underpin accountability theory in the EU context. Using case studies of the Community courts and European Ombudsman, the article suggests that ‘accountability networks’ may be emerging, composed of agencies specialising in a specific mode of accountability, which come together or coalesce in a relationship of support, fortified by shared professional expertise and ethos. At present fragmentary and imperfect, these might ultimately be capable of providing effective machinery for accountability in network governance systems.

http://edoc.vifapol.de/opus/volltexte/2011/2461/pdf/egp_connex_C_06_02.pdf

Promoting Accountability in Multilevel Governance: A Network Approach

This definitive textbook explores the field of law which allows government and its agencies to practically apply its laws. The subject, affected by policy and political factors, can challenge even the more advanced student. In response, this title looks at both the law and the factors informing it, laying down the foundations of the subject. This contextualised approach also allows the student to develop the broadest possible perspective. Case law and legislation are set out and discussed, and the authors have built in a range of case studies to give a practical emphasis to the study. It is, however, the distinctive theoretical framework for administrative law that the authors develop that distinguishes this title from others and allows for real understanding of the subject. This updated edition will cement the title's seminal status.

Law and administration

Group litigation has been recognised by political scientists in the States as a useful method of gaining ground and attracting publicity for pressure groups since the turn of the century. In Britain however, recognition that the courts fill such a role has come more slowly. Despite this lack of recognition, pressure through law is far from a modern phenomenon. As the authors show, such cases can be identified in Britain as early as 1749 when abolitionists used the court to test conflicting views of slavery in common law. This book looks at the extent to which pressure groups in Britain use litigation, presenting a view of the courts as a target for campaigners and a vehicle for campaigning. It begins with a description of the tradition of pressure through law in Britain, tracing the development of a parallel tradition in the United States, which has been influential in shaping current British attitudes. The authors analyse the significance of the political environment in Britain in test-case strategy. In contrast with America, Britain has no written constitution and no Bill of Rights and its lack of Freedom of Information legislation makes both litigation and the monitoring of its effects very difficult. However, the centralised character of the British government means that the effects of lobbying are rather more visible in the corridors of power. The authors examine a large number of case studies in order to analyse current practice, and they look at the rapidly changing European and international scene, discussing transnational law, the European community and the Council of Europe. They also look at the campaign tactics of global organisations such as Amnesty and Greenpeace. Carol Harlow and Richard Rawlings are experienced in public law and familiar with political science literature. They are therefore able to relate legal systems to the political process, in a book designed to be accessible and important to lawyers, to political scientists and to lobby group activists.

Carol Harlow

Papers

Global Administrative Law: The Quest for Principles and Values

Accountability in the European Union

Promoting Accountability in Multilevel Governance: A Network Approach

Law and administration

Pressure through law