The dialectics of accountability for performance in public management reform

TLDR: For instance, accountability is a cornerstone of public governance and management because it constitutes the principle that informs the processes whereby those who hold and exercise public authority are held to account as mentioned in this paper.

Abstract: Introduction Accountability is a cornerstone of public governance and management because it constitutes the principle that informs the processes whereby those who hold and exercise public authority are held to account. Although accountability regimes vary in important respects among political systems, taken collectively they encompass processes whereby citizens hold their governors to account for their behaviour and performance directly through elections; the representatives of citizens in legislative assemblies hold political executives and public servants accountable through mechanisms of public scrutiny and audit; political executives hold their subordinate officials accountable through hierarchical structures of authority and responsibility; and, among other things, courts and various administrative tribunals and commissions hold legislatures, executives or administrative officers accountable to the law (Cooper, 1995; Stone, 1995; Mulgan, 1997). The purposes that accountability are meant to serve are essentially threefold, although they overlap in several ways. The first is to control for the abuse and misuse of public authority. The second is to provide assurancein respect to the use of public resources and adherence to the law and public service values. The third is to encourage and promote learning in pursuit of continuous improvement in governance and public management. Because accountability is an integral dimension of governance and public management it cannot be affected by the extent to which governance and public management are subject to ever increasing complexity (Thomas, 1998). Governments everywhere are under increasing pressures to be both more productive and more effective — to achieve not only the greatest degree of economy and efficiency possible but also to secure desired outcomes in respect to economic