Auditing and accountability in the European Union

Laffan, Brigid

doi:10.1080/1350176032000124078

Cited by 34 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…It is not enough to study the legislative act that establishes an agency. We must pay attention to how agencies are transformed after they are formally founded (Laffan 2003;Simon 1953). Democratic government and politics have been, and still are, in competition with other resources than the ballot (Schattschneider 1960) and with other identities and loyalties than national citizenship.…”

Section: Specialized Structure and Citizens In Multiple Rolesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Democratic Order, Autonomy, and Accountability

Olsen

2015

Governance

101

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Accountability is a principle for organizing relations between rulers and ruled, and making public officials accountable is a democratic achievement. There are, however, competing claims about what is involved in demanding, rendering, assessing, and responding to accounts; what are effective accountability institutions; and how accountability regimes emerge and change. This article provides a frame for thinking about institutional aspects of accountability regimes and their cognitive, normative, and power foundations. A distinction is made between accountability within an established regime with stable power relations and role expectations and accountability as (re)structuring processes in less institutionalized contexts and in transformation periods. A huge literature is concerned with the first issue. There is less attention to accountability as (re)structuring processes. The article, therefore, calls attention to how democracies search for, and struggle over, what are legitimate accountability regimes and political orders.

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Section: Specialized Structure and Citizens In Multiple Rolesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Democratic Order, Autonomy, and Accountability

Olsen

2015

Governance

101

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“…4 See Fisher (2004, 510) for similar observations about the use of 'accountability' in the European context. 5 See for the rise of administrative accountability in the EU: Harlow (2002, 108-143), Magnette (2003), Laffan (2003), and Pujas (2003). 6 See Bovens (2005), of which some of the following paragraphs are drawn.…”

Section: New Forms Of Accountability and European Governance: Taking mentioning

confidence: 99%

New Forms of Accountability and EU-Governance

Bovens

2007

Comp Eur Polit

127

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“…The First Budget Treaty, as it is also known, created one unified budget for all three Communities. It also marked a milestone for their financial independence, because it endowed them with their 'own resources' for the first time (Laffan, 1997). The Communities acquired the right to collect revenue in the form of agriculture levies, customs duties and value added tax.…”

Section: The Ecas: the Fight For Independent And Rigorous Auditmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At the time, most of the public audit in the Communities was performed by a body called the Audit Board (Laffan, 1997), which was characterized by the absence of two very important features common among the supreme public audit institutions in the member states: independence from political masters and monitoring of the execution of the budget. First, although the relevant articles described the Board as an independent body, they included no specific provisions on how this independence would be maintained in practice.…”

Section: The Ecas: the Fight For Independent And Rigorous Auditmentioning

confidence: 99%

Imitation and supranational politics: some lessons from the European Ombudsman and the European Court of Auditors

Kourtikakis

2010

Eur. Pol. Sci. Rev.

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Why do certain European Union (EU) institutions look so much like institutions in its member states? The article asserts the reason for this similarity is that these structures have been 'copied' from the member states to the EU and provides a historical institutionalist explanation for this process of institutional transfer. The theory of isomorphism provides the analytical foundation for understanding institutional imitation in the EU, while the European ombudsman (EO) and the European Court of Auditors (ECAs) serve as the empirical case studies on which the theory is tested. The article finds that previously existing institutional arrangements matter not only by molding actor preferences in relation to an upcoming institutional transfer, but also by restricting their options and behavior. Specifically, the founding of the EO and the ECAs was the result of pressures exercised by the European Parliament, a supranational body, and the governments of the EU member states. In order to achieve the transfer, those actors had to navigate established institutional practices, primarily the ones associated with the negotiation of new treaties, which are necessary for the addition of new institutions to the EU institutional edifice.

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Auditing and accountability in the European Union

Cited by 34 publications

References 3 publications

Democratic Order, Autonomy, and Accountability

Democratic Order, Autonomy, and Accountability

New Forms of Accountability and EU-Governance

Imitation and supranational politics: some lessons from the European Ombudsman and the European Court of Auditors

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