Abstract of a paper to be presented in the panel G104 of the 2016 conference of the International Research Society of Public Management, to be held April 13-15 2016 at the City University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
Public Accountability Practiced Beyond Accountancy:
Towards a Realistic Approach
Peter Hupe and Henk Klaassen
Abstract
In 2008 the banking crisis occurred as if it were a natural disaster. It surprised many, while its impact was global. Coping with the crisis’ aftermath, in most countries governments took stringent policy measures. Apart from bailouts and other forms of direct intervention, governments sought ways to enhance accountability of banks, as well as on the multiple layers within the public sector itself. As it looked, existing oversight structures and accountability practices had not been able to prevent the banking crisis from happening.
This relates to a broader problem, concerning how political-administrative and managerial talk (words and numbers) relates to action (what actors in public service actually do and not do). In many policy areas systems of accountability have been set up. Data collected within organizations function as management tools, in the sense that they enable decision-making. However, the extent to which the accounted data reflect more than a virtual reality concerns an empirical question.
In this paper the development of an empirical approach to the research of public accountability is aimed at. To this goal insights from two perspectives on accountability are explored and compared. On one hand, the financial management perspective provides tools with which public managers can and do work when holding others to account, both ‘vertically’ and ‘horizontally’. On the other hand, a more general perspective, particularly from political science and Public Administration, offers a look at accountability in its societal, professional and public-administrative context. The exposition of the two perspectives in the paper will follow some indicators, enabling, next, a comparison. How can the look on accountability from both perspectives be characterized, what similarities and differences can be observed, and what do those imply for a more realistic approach to public accountability? By combining the assets of both perspectives the paper contributes to making accountability count in public service performance.
Peter Hupe (hupe@fsw.eur.nl), and Henk Klaassen (klaassen@fsw.eur.nl), Department of Public Administration and Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands
IRSPM_2016_Paper_PH_HK_Conference_paper.pdf 