Why do public agencies seek accountability? The role of audiences
| Published date | 01 September 2023 |
| Author | Thijs Boer |
| Date | 01 September 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12859 |
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Why do public agencies seek accountability?
The role of audiences
Thijs de Boer
Department of Political Science & Public
Administration, VU Amsterdam, Amsterdam,
Netherlands
Correspondence
Thijs de Boer, Department of Political
Science & Public Administration, VU
Amsterdam, Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV
Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Email: t.c.de.boer@vu.nl
Funding information
European Research Council, Grant/Award
Number: 716439
Abstract
Accountability-seeking behaviors of public agencies are said
to be motivated, among others, by attempts at pre-empting
stricter mandatory provisions, logic of appropriateness
motives, Machiavellian opportunism, reputational consider-
ations, and a perceived need to compensate for the inade-
quacy of traditional arrangements. However, we do not
know when a particular rationale, or a combination thereof,
prevails. This study therefore examines how public agencies
seek accountability, to whom and for what reason. Relying
on data from 15 interviews with top-level managers/
directors and 75 survey responses, it demonstrates that the
type of audience to whom the account is rendered is a key
explanatory factor as to why specific mechanisms become
“activated.”This study furthermore uncovers why certain
rationales are associated with specific types of audiences.
Thus, rather than a “holy grail”of one set of driving motiva-
tions, our study suggests, one should look at the audience
to understand why a public agency seeks accountability.
1|INTRODUCTION
Many public tasks have been delegated away from the core of government to public agencies at arm's length during
the last couple of decades. Delegation to (quasi-)autonomous agencies is considered to pose a threat to the tradi-
tional, hierarchical model of accountability (Strøm, 2000) and failure to make agencies sufficiently accountable can
undermine the legitimacy of modern governance (Bovens et al., 2008). Hence, guaranteeing accountability through
Received: 9 July 2021 Revised: 3 May 2022 Accepted: 5 May 2022
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12859
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
© 2022 The Author. Public Administration published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Public Admin. 2023;101:865–883. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm 865
the design of effective institutions is one of the major challenges for public administration today (Dubnick &
Frederickson, 2010).
A notable and counter-intuitive development in this regard is that agencies—as well as other kinds of organiza-
tions operating at arm's length from government (Schwabenland & Hirst, 2018)—across the world and at both local,
national and supranational levels have voluntarily adopted practices to enhance their accountability. Studies have
documented voluntary accountability among a wide variety of public sector organizations, including national
(Koop, 2014; Magill, 2009) and supranational (Arras & Braun, 2018; Busuioc & Jevnaker, 2020; Wood, 2018) (quasi-)
autonomous agencies, municipalities (Doering et al., 2021; Karsten, 2015) and social service providers (Romzek
et al., 2012). Voluntary accountability reportedly relies on a variety of mechanisms, including self-initiated public con-
sultation procedures in the absence of/beyond statutory responsibilities (Arras & Braun, 2018), (interactive) websites
and social media (Bertot et al., 2012), voluntary external reviews (Doering et al., 2021), actor-initiated requests for
public/parliamentary hearings (Busuioc, 2013), self-regulation (Magill, 2009) and consultative forums (Arras &
Braun, 2018; Busuioc & Jevnaker, 2020).
This “persistent”phenomenon (Reiss, 2011, 647) is theoretically intriguing as dominant theory portrays agencies
as generally accountability-avoidant (Schillemans & Busuioc, 2015). As a result, a scholarly debate has sparked about
why agencies would commit themselves voluntarily to accountability. Attempting to adjudicate between possible
competing rationales, various scholars have made valuable contributions to this debate by seeking to identify the
core mechanism responsible for voluntary accountability. Different studies have proposed different dominant mech-
anisms at play. Albeit not an exhaustive overview, some of the dominant logics put forward read as follows.
Schillemans (2011) has argued that accountability-seeking behavior stems from the felt need to compensate for the
inadequacy of traditional arrangements (e.g., ministerial responsibility), in the disaggregate context brought on by
public management reforms. Koop (2014) on the other hand, has made the argument that accountability-seeking
behavior is driven by dominant institutional norms that prescribe accountability as an indispensable element of good
governance in today's public sector or, alternatively, that such behavior can be seen as strategic attempts to pre-
empt calls for additional statutory provisions. Karsten (2015, p. 697) has contended that voluntary account-giving is
the result of a cost–benefit analysis made by self-interested actors “who estimate the strengths and weaknesses of
alternative types of accountability behaviour under different circumstances.”Finally, Busuioc and Lodge (2016,
2017) have advanced reputational considerations as an important potential driver behind accountability-seeking
behavior.
While a variety of (competing) rationales have been proposed, it remains unclear when these mechanisms are
likely to become a prevailing or dominant driver of voluntary accountability. This gap is significant since there is con-
troversy over what factors are most important for safeguarding accountability in modern governance (Busuioc &
Lodge, 2017; Olsen, 2013; Romzek et al., 2012; Scott, 2000). Studying voluntary accountability can help to illuminate
our understanding in this regard as it provides a unique opportunity for evaluating competing accounts as to the rela-
tive importance of different incentive structures (e.g., institutional, reputational, moral, financial, etcetera). As noted
by Magill (2009, p. 900), it is “a promising way to assess these competing accounts because it is voluntarily
undertaken—and by that I mean it is generated by the agency even though no source of authority requires the
agency to take an action.”
Rather than searching for one dominant mechanism, this study attempts to uncover when a particular mecha-
nism, or a combination thereof, prevails. Specifically, this study aims to assess to which extent specific mechanisms
are linked to specific types of audiences. Building on accountability studies (Bovens et al., 2008; Willems & Van
Dooren, 2012) that indicate that accountability serves different purposes depending on the type of relationship in
which it occurs, we argue that agencies presumably have different incentives to seek accountability depending on
the audience. For this reason, we suggest that the type of audience to whom the voluntary account is rendered is a key
explanatory factor as to why specific mechanisms become activated. The paper next explores and elucidates which
mechanisms in particular are relevant for specific types of audiences. Our analysis relies predominantly on 15 inter-
views with top-level managers working at European Union (EU) agencies (of which 10 interviews with executive
866 de BOER
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