Book Review: Rose-Ackerman, S. (2005). From Elections to Democracy: Building Accountable Government in Hungary and Poland. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press

Abstract

Susan Rose-Ackerman has made a gallant and thorough attempt to describe and unmask the complex process of consolidating democracy in Central Europe. Rose-Ackerman argues that "full democracy" entails creating policy-making processes that are transparent, that incorporate input from activists and citizens, and for which public officials are held accountable. She explores the ways these standards are being pursued in two postsocialist countries, often held to be among the most successfully reformed and democratized in the region: Hungary and Poland.Rose-Ackerman distinguishes between two kinds of accountability: performance accountability and policy-making accountability. The former is the subject of much of the literature on bureaucratic responsiveness and government efficiency and studies such as Robert Putnam's (1994) well-cited study Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Policy-making accountability, as Rose-Ackerman describes it, entails creating institutional mechanisms that allow the state to "take into account the interests and views of citizens-both broad-based attitudes and those directed toward particular policy choices" (p. 2).Rose-Ackerman considers several means of increasing policy-making accountability. First, she argues that regular, free, and fair elections; partisan politics; and the parliamentary system are not sufficient means to guarantee such accountability because elections occur too infrequently and force voters to choose a party on the basis of entire platforms, not single issues. Also, parliamentary oversight of cabinet officials and bureaucrats is often weak and politically biased. Rather, Rose-Ackerman chooses to focus on five other mechanisms for ensuring policy-making accountability: external international constraints, independent (national) oversight bodies, delegation to subnational levels of government, negotiated policy making through neocorporatist structures, and open-ended public participation in policy making.The most significant international constraint shaping policy making in Central Europe has been the EU. However, Rose-Ackerman points out that the EU's leverage is reduced by the fact that Poland and Hungary are now members of the union, so the threat of denying membership is no longer available. The EU generally lacks the political will to really force its members' hands. Thus, whereas the EU does suggest or even require some institutional forms that may increase accountability, such as regional economic development agencies, it cannot be relied on to ensure policy-making accountability. On the contrary, national politicians often use the EU as an excuse to be less accountable to their constituents.