Who Are the Policy Workers, and What Are They Doing? Citizen’s Heuristics and Democratic Accountability in Complex Governance

Abstract

Two critical questions for the study of accountability in contemporary governance can focus attention on the citizen, rather than the official. I begin with the question of whether a citizen can identify a policy worker-that is, the bureaucrat, contractor, or other actor acting in pursuit of a legislated policy goal. I then turn to whether a citizen can evaluate policy work that is done to further a legislated policy goal. Both identification and evaluation prove tricky to assess in a great deal of policy work, leaving accountability an important, but elusive, democratic value. This paper provides a framework for analysts to understand when and why accountability works from a citizen's perspective and what incentives policy workers and politicians have when it does.

Why public organizations contribute to crosscutting policy programs: the role of structure, culture, and ministerial control

“…The interest groups and client organizations in the governing board of such agencies have a strong interest in ensuring that the agency devotes the maximum amount of resources and effort to achieve its statutorily defined goals, as this benefits the actors that they represent (for a similar argument in structural choice theory, see, e.g., Moe 1990). Finally, agencies are more visible and identifiable in society, compared to departments for instance, so these organizations put forth their best efforts in performing well in terms of their statutorily defined objectives (Bertelli 2016;Schillemans and Jacobs 2014).…”

The political cost of public–private partnerships: Theory and evidence from Colombian infrastructure development

“…Identifying a private partner who can be blamed is not enough to avoid accountability for a policy disaster when government and private interests are tangled in complex and corrupt ways (cf. Bertelli, ; Hood, ). If the pressures of electoral accountability result in a cancellation of contracts, a sociotropic turn by voters is another type of political risk that scholars of PPPs must explicitly consider.…”

Refugee return and fragmented governance in the host state: displaced Syrians in the face of Lebanon’s divided politics

“…'Who are the policy workers, and what are they doing?' (Bertelli 2016) Lebanon's key governance actors may agree today that displaced Syrians should return. Still, they have proposed and implemented so many initiatives that it has almost become impossible to determine a site of focal decision-making (Atallah and Mahdi 2017).…”