1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910826141603321

Autore

Behn Robert D

Titolo

Rethinking democratic accountability / / Robert D. Behn

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Washington, D.C., : Brookings Institution Press, c2001

ISBN

0-8157-9810-5

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (327 p.)

Disciplina

352.3/5/0973

Soggetti

Administrative responsibility - United States

Administrative agencies - United States - Management

United States Officials and employees Discipline

United States Officials and employees Rating of

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

What do we mean by accountability, anyway? -- Performance and the new public management -- The traditional, public-administration paradigm of accountability -- The questions of democratic accountability -- Discretion and trust -- Retrospective accountability for performance -- A new compact of mutual, collective responsibility -- The cooperation challenge -- Fostering cooperation with conventions and norms -- Evolving a charter agency -- 360-degree accountability for performance.

Sommario/riassunto

Traditionally, American government has created detailed, formal procedures to ensure that its agencies and employees are accountable for finances and fairness. Now in the interest of improved performance, we are asking our front-line workers to be more responsive, we are urging our middle managers to be innovative, and we are exhorting our public executives to be entrepreneurial. Yet what is the theory of democratic accountability that empowers public employees to exercise such discretion while still ensuring that we remain a government of laws? How can government be responsive to the needs of individual citizens and still remain accountable to the entire polity? In Rethinking Democratic Accountability, Robert D. Behn examines the ambiguities, contradictions, and inadequacies in our current systems of accountability for finances, fairness, and performance. Weaving wry



observations with political theory, Behn suggests a new model of accountability--with "compacts of collective, mutual responsibility"--to address new paradigms for public management.