Accountability unlimited

This book describes global “efforts to reinvent accountability in practice”. Clearly, calls for greater accountability of political and economic institutions have grown louder in recent years. The search for remedies to piecemeal democratisation has gained momentum even in unlikely places and in support of unexpected causes. For example in Canada, native American women’s groups have succeeded to make public the misspending of federal funds by their tribal leaders. Or in Angola’s capital Luanda, where discrimination of the urban poor with regard to access to water supplies has been a main concern to a local NGO.
Accountability, according to Goetz and Jenkins, is like a moving target: frequently missed by entrenched players and their conventional, restricted interpretations of political issues and processes. In particular, state-centric, election-focused forms of accountability increasingly prove to be obsolete vehicles for providing political voice worthy of the term, notably to the poor and marginalised. With the emergence of a “new accountability agenda”, many citizens who have at best been endowed with formal, superficial opportunities for expressing themselves can now find new channels to raise concerns and grievances. And increasingly they succeed in sparking off genuine change. Yet still, the “reinvention of accountability” emerges spontaneously rather than in any coordinated or preconceived manner.

The book introduces the distinction between vertical and horizontal accountability to explain potential remedies to shortcomings. Whereas vertical accountability tends to be equated with election processes and representation in a nation-state, horizontal accountability is driven by civil society. On the other hand, the lines between the two axis are becoming blurred – notably when accountability starts to project itself globally: on issues such as human rights, sustainable development or democratisation, non-state voices and action alliances arise. According to the authors, this emerging global civil society contributes to “the construction of new transnational accountability institutions” meant to address failures of traditional state-centred accountability mechanisms.

Convincingly the authors argue that poverty goes hand-in-hand with protracted failures in accountability, as these are related to a skewed distribution of public goods, deprivations endured by the poor, and limited opportunities for socio-economic advancement. The book makes a convincing case that democracy can work; it offers abundant evidence in support of good governance and empowerment efforts, in developed and developing countries alike. And it adds significantly to action-oriented theory of democratisation and just human development.

“Reinventing accountability” is a highly readable political book. Regrettably its high price is bound to prevent it from gaining a larger readership. However, if I had to recommend a dozen key books to students of political science and seasoned policy advisors, this book would definitely be on my list. Glenn Brigaldino