Public Accountability in a New Institutional Environment
| Published date | 01 September 2006 |
| Author | Marilyn Taylor,Helen Sullivan |
| DOI | 10.1177/095207670602100301 |
| Date | 01 September 2006 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
1
Editorial
Public
Accountability
in
a
New
Institutional
Environment
Helen
Sullivan
and
Marilyn
Taylor
University
of the
West
of
England,
Bristol
The
impacts
of
globalisation,
Europeanisation,
urbanisation
and
changes
to
the
composition,
orientation
and
sophistication
of
citizens
on
the
workings
of
western
liberal
democracies
have
been
well
documented
(Garcia,
2006;
Denters
and
Rose,
2005),
as
has
the
development
of
new
governance
arrangements
that
have
emerged
in
response
to
these
challenges.
The
’new
governance’
operates
at
multiple
levels
and
sites
and
through
many
and
varied
actors
and
is
oriented
more
towards
human
capacities
and
practices
than
formal
structures
and
organisation.
It
is
manifest
in
new
strategies
and
practices
including
privatisation,
partnering
and
the
creative
application
of
new
communication
technologies.
It
is
also
associated
with
a
’new
politics’
which
eschews
party
politics
for
alternative
forms
of
public
participation
and
representation
that
may
be
mandated
by
the
state
or
self-organising
by
the
public.
The
consequences
of
the
new
governance
are
many
and
include
a
fundamental
challenge
to
the
established
principles
and
practices
of
public
accountability
(Bovens,
1998;
Mulgan,
2000;
Sullivan,
2003).
Considine
(2002)
articulates
the
problem
neatly
by
contrasting
the
vertical
accountability
practiced
in
an
age
of
hierarchy
with
an
emergent
horizontal
accountability
associated
with
governance
through
markets
and
networks
that
acknowledges
the
increasing
interdependence
of
actors
in
making
and
delivering
public
policy.
This
raises
important
questions
about
the
very
nature
of
accountability
in
this
new
institutional
environment,
the
extent
to
which
there
is
what
Day
and
Klein
(1987)
term
a
common
currency
of
expectations
about
accountability
amongst
actors
from
very
different
domains,
whether
accountability
needs
to
focus
on
actors
rather
than
organisations,
who
owes
accountability
to
whom
and
how
multiple
accountability
requirements
are
best
discharged.
These
were
some
of
the
questions
that
led
us
in
2004
to
establish
a
series
of
ESRC
funded
seminars’
devoted
to
unravelling
the
complexities
and
dilemmas
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