What if performance accountability mechanisms engender distrust?

Abstract

An axiomatic assumption in contemporary democratic theory is that accountability mechanisms generate trust and legitimacy in and for democratic systems: in relation to decision-makers (elected officials), facilitators (the public bureaucracy) and outcomes of public policy (scope and quality). However, how wise is it to take this assumption for granted? What if accountability mechanisms applied in democracies with high levels of trust promote distrust rather than trust? This article will elaborate on and analyse the inherent theoretical logic of performance scrutiny as a basis for performance accountability in political-administrative systems inspired by new public management reforms. Performance scrutiny practices derived from Sweden, a high-trust society, are used as empirical illustrations and as a basis to generate hypotheses on how and why practices to analysis performance accountability have the potential to counteract trust.

Inter‐level Trust in a Multilevel Political System

“…A result of this trend, which in itself is a sign of distrust in local authorities’ abilities, is a change in the focus of local actors from local citizen responsiveness to addressing deviations from national indicators of service quality. This distracts them from their democratic duties and may fuel further distrust in local government (Johansson & Montin ).…”

“…And local service providers cannot implement national policy goals if national actors do not trust municipalities and regions with sufficient autonomy and resources. A breach in trust between national and local institutions could lead to actions by the state where local self‐governance is reduced by factors such as increasing regulation, performance scrutiny (Johansson & Montin ) or centralisation of responsibilities. It could be very hard to heal such rifts of distrust between tiers (Lowndes 1999).…”

Public values and administrative reforms in French health care

“…Public value challenges the rise of individual economic utility to re-emphasize the common good and serving the citizenry (de Vries & Kim, 2011). Community and civic mediation, a collaborative approach among a wide range of interested parties, and meeting people's social wants should increase motivation (Stoker, 2006) and restore the trust (Fledderus et al, 2014) that eroded under earlier NPM policies (Johansson & Montin, 2014). Public value has also been described as the citizens' perception of the society similar to the shareholders' view on their return on investment (Moore, 2013;Horner & Hazel, 2005).…”

Public Procurement as Marketisation: Impacts on Civil Servants and Public Administration in Sweden

“…Ahrne, Aspers & Brunsson, 2015), on the influence of auditing and control (e.g. Johansson & Montin, 2014;Johansson, 2015) on the legal issues related to contracting out (Pierre & Painter, 2010) and on the stealth-like appropriation of economic theory in public administration (Pierre, 2011), an explicit focus on public procurement seems to be missing from the literature.…”