Mixing Elected and Nonelected Officials in Democratic Policy Making: Fundamentals of Accountability and Responsibility

Dunn, Delmer D.

doi:10.1017/cbo9781139175104.011

Cited by 40 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The accountor acknowledges the position of the accountee as his accountability-holder. In order to trace this subjective aspect of accountability, scholars have often asked people in public administration to indicate to whom they felt to be accountable (see Day and Klein 1987;Sinclair 1995;Romzek and Dubnick 1998;D. Dunn 1999;Verschuere et al 2006).…”

Section: Accountability Definedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accountability in the Shadow of Hierarchy: The Horizontal Accountability of Agencies

2008

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Section: Accountability Definedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accountability in the Shadow of Hierarchy: The Horizontal Accountability of Agencies

2008

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Constitutional practice is to only appoint to appointee as Ministers or Deputy Ministers, though under the rules of some ministries, some Secretary-Generals are appointees rather than civil servants; career executives who interact with appointees are thus at the pinnacle of their agencies. The limited number of political appointees in Taiwan is a bit similar to that found in US states (rather than the US federal government), but executive relations are characterized by similar tensions and concerns as mentioned in the Western literature (for example, Aberbach and Rockman 1976;Lorentzen 1985;Dunn 1999;NAPA 2009;Coursey and Killingsworth 2010). While the size of Taiwan, and its central government (about 180,000 civil servants.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 63%

“…By contrast, a very different perspective, within public administration, points to distinctive and complementary roles and competencies of elected officials and career managers (Protasel 1985; Pfeffer 1987a, b; Brady and Catterall 1997; Dunn 1999). At issue here is not the ability of political appointees to implement political agendas, but rather the extent that agencies and senior executives give leadership to the often highly diversified policy portfolios of agencies (for example, Maranto 2005).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Public Agency Leadership: The Impact of Informal Understandings With Political Appointees on Perceived Agency Innovation in Taiwan

Berman

Chen

Jan

et al. 2012

Public Administration

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In Taiwan's post‐democratization, public managers reduced their leadership and initiative‐taking, thereby creating concerns about public sector leadership. This article defines the concept of informal ‘executive initiative understandings' (EIUs) between political appointees and career executives, and examines how such understandings affect public managers' efforts and agency leadership. Based on an in‐person survey of Taiwan central government executives, findings show that: (1) about half of senior career executives agree that they have an informal understanding with appointees' about their initiative‐taking; and (2) having an EIU significantly and strongly increases executives' efforts and perceptions of agency innovation. This study also finds (3) that EIUs are associated with executives' public service motivation, perceptions of appointees' competence, and executives and appointees having similar political views. This article concludes with suggestions for increasing executive initiative‐taking in public agencies.

show abstract

“…An agent with discretionary power is accountable to the principal who has entrusted him with this power for the way he carries out his responsibilities. 26 In common usage, 'accountability' is associated with the process of being called 'to account' for what one does or has done. 27 The closest synonym is 'answerability,' which 'indicates that being accountable to somebody implies the obligation to respond to nasty questions, and vice versa, that holding somebody accountable implies the opportunity to ask uncomfortable questions'.…”

Section: Accountability and Justificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Professional Discretion and Accountability in the Welfare State

Molander

Grimen²,

Eriksen

2012

J Applied Philosophy

123

115

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The discretionary powers of welfare state professionals are in tension with the requirements of the democratic Rechtsstaat. Extensive use of discretion can threaten the principles of the rule of law and relinquish democratic control over the implementation of laws and policies. These two tensions are in principle ineradicable. But does this also mean that they are impossible to come to grips with? Are there measures that may ease these tensions?We introduce an understanding of discretion that adds an epistemic dimension (discretion as a mode of reasoning) to the common structural understanding of discretion (an area of judgment and decision). Accordingly we distinguish between structural and epistemic measures of accountability.The aim of the former is to constrain discretionary spaces or the behaviour within them while the aim of the latter is to improve the quality of discretionary reasoning.The focus in this article is on epistemic measures that are internally related to the main characteristic of accountability, namely justified use of discretionary power.What characterizes many welfare-state arrangements is that they confer discretionary powers upon professionals in their roles as 'street-level bureaucrats'. 2 Professionals then act as gatekeepers, deciding who gets what, when, and how. This fact has generated its share of criticism. 3 The discretionary powers of welfare-state professionals are troublesome for two main reasons. First, there is a tension between discretion and the formal demands of the rule of law. Extensive use of discretion in the application of law can threaten the principles of predictability, legality and equal treatment. Second, there is a tension between discretion and democratic control. Discretion is the black hole of democracy -to borrow Bo Rothstein's metaphor. 4 Entrusting street-level bureaucrats with extensive discretionary powers is by definition almost equal to relinquishing democratic control over these final steps.There is, of course, a lot of sloppy discretionary work. But that is not our point and not what basically makes discretion problematic from the point of view of rule of law and democracy. The two tensions are intrinsic and cannot be removed, only ameliorated. They follow from the very nature of discretion as a judgmental and decisional activity and can appear even if we presuppose that the activity is performed in a conscientious manner. 5 Our guiding idea is that discretion has both a structural and an epistemic aspect. On the one hand it designates a space where an agent has the autonomy to judge, decide and act according to his own judgment. In this sense discretion is an 'opportunity-concept'. On the other hand it designates the kind of reasoning that results in conclusions about what to do under conditions of indeterminacy. In this sense it is an 'exercise-concept'. 6

show abstract

Mixing Elected and Nonelected Officials in Democratic Policy Making: Fundamentals of Accountability and Responsibility

Cited by 40 publications

References 0 publications

Accountability in the Shadow of Hierarchy: The Horizontal Accountability of Agencies

Accountability in the Shadow of Hierarchy: The Horizontal Accountability of Agencies

Public Agency Leadership: The Impact of Informal Understandings With Political Appointees on Perceived Agency Innovation in Taiwan

Professional Discretion and Accountability in the Welfare State

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About