Accountability of immigration administration: comparing crises in Norway, Denmark and Germany

Abstract

Accountability can be conceptualized as institutionalized mechanisms obliging actors to explain their conduct to different forums, which can pose questions and impose sanctions. This article analyses different 'crises' in immigration policies in Norway, Denmark and Germany along a descriptive framework of five different accountability types: political, administrative, legal, professional and social accountability. The exchanges of information, debate and their consequences between an actor and a forum are crucial to understanding how political-administrative action is carried out in critical situations. First, accountability dynamics emphasize conventional norms and values regarding policy change and, second, formal political responsibility does not necessarily lead to political consequences such as minister resignations in cases of misbehaviour. Consequences strongly depend on how accountability dynamics take place. Points for practitionersPolitical and administrative leaders as well as civil servants are faced with several demands from the wider public and from internal or external peers. There is a relationship between actors and forums that is important in understanding how public administration works. This relationship can be described as accountability dynamics. In cases of crises, these dynamics can overcome or sustain daily administrative practices and routines. Our accountability framework offers a systematic scheme to recognize five accountability relations which should be considered during reorganization processes or policy changing initiatives.

The Impact of Accountability Mechanisms on Public Sector Environmental Sustainability Performance: A Case Study of Sri Lanka

“…The authors concluded that relationships that particularly exists between elected officials, public servants and citizens are not strong and the actor-forum relationships are not achieving the expected outcomes, for instance, citizens are labelled as principal (forum) and elected officials are the agent (actor), however, in practice, citizens are treated as actors and elected officials are treated as principals. On the contrary, a study conducted by Reichersdorfer, Christensen & Vrangbaek (2013) on three developed countries -Norway, Denmark and Germany -of their public sector accountability mechanisms found that accountability relationship between elected officials and citizens and pressure groups are very strong. Internal levels of accountability such as professional accountability were not as strong, however, these parties were answerable when issues were triggered by legal and social/political forums in the accountability relationships such as citizens, pressure groups, legal system.…”

Means, ends and meaning in accountability for strategic education governance

“…Embedded in such context, observers note a tendency in the field of education towards entering accountability-related discussions in a combative and reactive stance (Sahlberg, 2007[55]; Sahlberg, 2010 [56]). In turn, accountability tensions in education are especially prone to serve as 'battlegrounds' for more fundamental stakeholder positions (Reichersdorfer, Christensen and Vrangbaek, 2013 [57]). These well-trodden battlegrounds can produce tensions amongst stakeholders periodically swelling in line with adjustments to respective interests, for example along the lines of reconciling centralised or localised curricula or balancing teacher professional discretion with responsiveness to parental expectations (Jaafar and Anderson, 2007[58]; Cochran-Smith, Piazza and Power, 2013 [59]).…”

Reputation Management in Societal Security: A Comparative Study

“…4-5). At the heart of accountability are information, debate/interaction, and consequence (Reichersdorfer, Christensen, & Vrangbaek, 2013). The accountability-related literature has generated various kinds of typologies, usually using the "accountable to whom" question as device to generate different types of categories (Bovens, 2007;Romzek & Dubnick, 1987;Schillemans, 2008).…”