A Tale of Accountability Trivia: What is the Status of Social Accountability in Bangladesh?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14666/2194-7759-6-1-005Keywords:
Accountability, Social accountability, Participatory budget making process, Access to information, Citizen charter, Citizen engagement, Governance, BangladeshAbstract
The aim of this paper is to introduce and explore the trivia of accountability, which is indispensable for ensuring rule of law, human rights and good governance in a country. The paper intends to depict the theoretical aspects of accountability, its typology, mechanisms, and application in the governance. Special attention has focused on social accountability to evaluate the citizens’ involvement in public service delivery as well as in ensuring public accountability in the context of Bangladesh. There are various mechanisms and components in ensuring social accountability; however, three components–citizen charter, participatory budget making process, and access to information, have been selected and used for the present paper. Empirical data and experiences of the author have been analyzed to evaluate social accountability in Bangladesh. The major findings of this study are- social accountability is a very effective opportunity to engage citizens in the participatory governance process and it has been already introduced and applied in Bangladesh. However, the people of Bangladesh are still not aware enough about social accountability and its mechanisms. Besides, the officials are still bear colonial attitude and behavior instead of friendly service providers.
Downloads
References
Achen, Christopher and Larry Bartels (2002). Blind Retrospection: Electoral Responses to Droughts, Flu, and Shark Attacks. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, MA.
Akkas, Sarkar Ali (2004), Independence and Accountability of Judiciary-A Critical Review. Dhaka: Center for Rights and Governance (CriG).
Asian Development Bank (ADB) (1999), Governance: Sound development management, Manila: ADB.
Aucoin, Peter and Heintzman, Ralph (2000), The Dialectics of Accountability for Performance in Public Management Reform. International Review of Administrative Science, Vol. 66: 45-55.
Aucoin P. (2012), New Political Governance in Westminster Systems: Impartial Public Administration and Management Performance at Risk, Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions, Vol. 25, No. 2: 177–199.
Aucoin, P. (1990), Administrative Reform in Public Management: Paradigms, Principles, Paradoxes and Pendulums, Governance, Vol 3, No.2: 115–137.
B. Guy Peters ( n.d), public accountability of autonomous public organizations, Volume 3: Linkages:Responsibilities and Accountabilities. Online available: http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/groupaction/v2fullreport/CISPAA_Vol3_6.pdf
Bergman, T., E. Damgaard (2000), Delegation and accountability in the European Union, London: Frank Cass.
Borins, S. (1995), The New Public Management is here to stay, Canadian Public Administration, Vol. 38: 122–132.
Bovens, Mark (1998), The Quest for Responsibility: Accountability and Citizenship in Complex Organizations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bovens, Mark (2005a), Public Accountability- A framework for the analysis and assessment of accountability arrangements in the public domain; www.qub.ac.uk/.../Bovens_Public%20Accountability.connex2.doc
Bovens, M.A.P. (2005b), Public Accountability’, in: E. Ferlie, L. Lynne & C. Pollitt (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Public Management, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brandsma, Gijs Jan (2013), Controlling Comitology: Accountability in a Multilevel System, Houndmills: Palgrave MacMillan.
Brinkerhoff, Derick W. (2001), Taking Account of Accountability: A Conceptual Overview and Strategic Options, studied by U.S. Agency for International Development, Center for Democracy and Governance, Implementing Policy Change Project, Phase 2, Washington, DC. March 2001
Connecttask (2014), Union Information and Service Centre (UISC):A Novel Digital Service of Bangladesh. Online available at: http://connecttask.com/blog/category/union-information-and-service-centre-uisca-novel-digital-service-of-bangladesh/
Cook, Thomas J., Jerry VanSant, Leslie Stewart, and Jamie Adrian (1995), Performance Management: Lessons Learned for Development Management. World Development. Vol. 23, No. 8, pp. 1303-1315
Common, R.K. (1998), Convergence and Transfer: A Review of the Globalization of New Public Management, The International Journal of Public Sector Management, Vol.11, No.6.
Day, P. & R. Klein (2001), Auditing the Auditors: audit in the National Health Service, London: The Nuffield Trust.
Dubnick, M. J. (2002), Seeking Salvation for Accountability, paper presented at the 2002 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston.
Dubnick, M. J. (2005), Accountability and the Promise of Performance: In Search of the Mechanisms. Public Performance & Management Review, 28(3): 376-417.
Dubnick, Melvin J., and Barbara S. Romzek (1993), Accountability and the Centrality of Expectations in American Public Administration, Research in Public Administration. Volume 2: 37-78.
Dubnick Melvin J. and H. George Frederickson (2011), Accountable Governance. Problems and Promises. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe.
Dunsire, A. (1995), Administrative theory in the 1980s: A Viewpoint. Public Administration, Vol. 73: 17–40.
Dwivedi, o.p. and Jabbra, J.G.(1988), Public Service Responsibility and Accountability, in Jabbra and Dwivedi (eds), Public Service Accountability: A Comparative Perspective, West Hartford Connecticut: Kumarian Press Inc.
Flinders, M. (2001), The Politics of Accountability in the Modern State. Brulington: Ashgate.
Goetz, A. M., & Jenkins, R. (2001), Hybrid forms of Accountability. Citizen Engagement in Institutions of Public-Sector Oversight in India. Public Management Review, Vol.3: 363–383.
Gailmard, Sean (2014), Accountability and Principal-Agent Theory, in The Oxford Handbook of Public Accountability, (Editors), Mark Bovens, Robert E. Goodin, Thomas Schillemans; Chapter six, Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK. Online: https://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/csls/Gailmard-Accountability and Principal-Agent_Models(2).pdf
Healy, Andrew and Neil Malhotra (2010). Random Events, Economic Losses, and Retrospective Voting: Implications for Democratic Competence. Quarterly Journal of Political Science 5: 193-208.
Harlow, C., & Rawlings, R. (2007), Promoting Accountability in Multilevel Governance: A Network Approach. European Law Journal, 14(4): 542–562.
Hasanuzzaman (2012), Reforming Bangladesh: Challenges and Opportunities, New Age. Online available at: http://newagebd.com/detail.php?date=2012-07-18&nid=17442
Hood, C. (1991), A Public Management for all Seasons? Public Administration , Vol. 69, No.1: 3–19.
Hood, C. (1995), The New Public Management in the 1980's: Variations on a Theme, Accounting, Organizations and Society , Vol. 20, No. 2/3:93–109.
Hood, C. (1989), Public administration and public policy: Intellectual challenges for the 1990s, Australian Journal of Public Administration, Vol.48: 346–58.
Hossain, A. N. M. Zakir; Begum, Anwara; Alam, Muhammad Shafiul; & Islam, Md. Shahidul (2014), Participatory Budgeting in Bangladesh Local Government Context, Public Administration Research; Vol. 3 (2); 2014.
Hughes, O.E. (2003), Public Management and Administration: An Introduction, 3rd edn. New York: Palgrave Macmillan
Hughes, O.E. (1998), Public Management and Administration: An Introduction, 2nd edn. New York: Palgrave Macmillan
Jabbra, Joseph G. and O. P. Dwivedi. Eds (1998), Public Service Accountability: A Comparative Perspective. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press.
Kenney, C. D. (2003), Horizontal accountability. Concepts and conflicts. In Mainwaring, S., & Welna, C. (Eds.). Democratic Accountability in Latin America, Oxford: Oxford University Press: 55–76.
Keeling D. (1972), Management in Government, George Allen and Unwin; London.
Keohane, R.O. (2002), Political accountability. Paper gepresenteerd op de ‘Conference on Delegation to International Organizations.’ Park City, Utah.
Lan Z. and Rosenbloom, D.H. (1992), Public Administration in Transition? Public Administration Review, Vol.52, No. 6.
Lenz, Gabriel (2012), Follow the Leader: How Voters Respond to Politicians’ Performance and Policies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lupia, Arthur and Mathew McCubbins (1998). The Democratic Dilemma: Can Citizens Learn What They Need to Know? New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lynn, Laurence E., Heinrich, Carolyn, & Hill Carolyn (2001), Improving governance: A New logic for Empirical Research. Georgetown University Press: Washington, DC.
McCandless, H. E. (2001), A Citizen’s Guide to Public Accountability: Changing the Relationship between Citizens and Authorities. Victoria B.C.: Trafford.
Minogue, M. (1998), Changing the State: Concepts and Practice in the Reform of the Public Sector in Minogue, M.; C. Polidano; David Hulme (eds.), Beyond the New Public Management, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Mollah, Md. Awal Hossain (2014), Administrative Reforms and Governance in Bangladesh: How far the Dream of Success?, Global Journal of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Vol.2(4):26-52.
Mulgan, R. (2003), Holding Power to Account: Accountability in Modern Democracies, Basingstoke: Pelgrave.
Murray Gleeson (1994), Judicial Accountability. In Courts in a Representative Democracy: A collection of the Papers from a National Conference in Canberra, The Australian Institute of Judicial Administration, Victoria.
O’Donnell, G. (2003), Horizontal Accountability. The legal institutionalization of mistrust. In Mainwaring, S., & Welna, C. (Eds.). Democratic accountability in Latin America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
O’Donnell, Guillermo (1999), Horizontal Accountability in New Democracies, in: Andreas Schedler, Larry Diamond & Marc F. Plattner (ed), The Self-Restraining State: Power and Accountability in New Democracies, Londen: Lynne Rienner Publishers: 29-51.
Orbuch, T.L. (1997), People’s Accounts Count. The Sociology of Accounts, Annual review of sociology Vol. 23: 455-478.
Osborne, D. and Gaebler, T. (1993), Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector. New York: A Plume Book.
Pere, Ayapere and Osain, Orueze (2015), Functional Impact of Public Accounts Committee on Public Accountability over Financial Crimes in Nigeria, Journal of Poverty, Investment and Development, Vol.8, 2015.
Pollitt, C. (2003), The Essential Public Manager, London: Open University Press/McGraw-Hill.
Pollitt, C. and Bouckaert, G. (2011), Public Management Reform A Comparative Analysis—New Public Management, Governance, and the Neo-Weberian State, Third Edition, Oxford University Press Inc.: New York.
Pollitt, Christopher & Bouckaert, G. (2005), Public Management Reform: A Comparative Analysis, Second Edition, Oxford: OUP.
PRIA (2013), Institutionalisation of Social Accountability in Asia, Policy brief. Online available at: http://gpsaknowledge.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Policy-Brief-Social-Accountability-2.pdf
Pollitt, C. (1990), Managerialism and Public Services: The Anglo American Experience, Oxford UK: Basil Blackwell.
Pollitt, C. (1995), “Justification by Works or by Faith? Evaluating the New Public Management”, Evaluation, vol. 1, no.2:133-154.
PUMA (1999), Managing Accountability in Intergovernmental Partnerships. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. PUMA Report No. RD (99)4/FINAL, December, 1999.
Reichard, C. (1996), Die ‘New Public Management’: debatte im internationalen kontext. In: C. Reichard & H.Wollmann, Knalverwaltung im modernisierungsschub, Basel: Birkhaeuser: 241–274.
Rick , Stapenhurst; and Mitchell, O’Brien (n.d.), Accountability in Governance. Retrieved from: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/publicsectorandgovernance/Resources/AccountabilityGovernance.pdf
Roberts, J. (2001), Trust and Control in Anglo-American Systems of Corporate Governance. The Individualising and Socialising Effects of Processes of Accountability’, Human Relations (54), p. 1547-1572.
Romzek, B. S. and M. J. Dubnick (1998), Accountability. In: J. M. Shafritz (ed.), International Encyclopaedia of Public Policy and Administration. Volume 1: A-C. Westview Press.
Romzek, B. S. (1987), Accountability in the Public Sector: lessons from the Challenger tragedy, Public Administration Review, Vol.47(3):227-238.
Schillemans, Thomas (2007), Accountability in the Shadow of Hierarchy:The Horizontal Accountability of Agencies in the Netherlands, Paper presented at the EGPA Study Group on Governance of Public Sector Organizations workshop on “The governance, control and autonomy of public sector organizations in a multi-level and multiactor setting”, EGPA-conference of 19-22 September 2007, INAP, Madrid, Spain. Online available: http://soc.kuleuven.be/io/egpa/org/2007madrid/papers/paper_Schillemans_EGPA_2007.pdf
Schillemans, Thomas (2008), Accountability in the Shadow of Hierarchy:The Horizontal Accountability of Agencies, Public Organization Review, Vol. 8:175–194.
Schillemans, Thomas and Busuioc, Madalina (2014), Predicting Public Sector Accountability: From Agency Drift to Forum Drift, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory,December, 2014; Retrieved from online link:http://www.researchgate.net/profile/T_Schillemans/publication/260788439_Predicting_Public_Sector_Accountability_From_Agency_Drift_to_Forum_Drift/links/54ae8fdd0cf21670b3583d26.pdf
Scott, Colin (2000), Accountability in the Regulatory State’, Journal of Law and Society, Vol. 27(1): 38-60.
Schedler, K. (1995), Zur vereinbarkeit von wirkungsorientierter verwaltungsfuehrung und demokratie. Swiss Political Science Review, Vol.1:154–166.
Simon, H.A. Thomson, V.A. and Smithburg, D.W.(1991), Public Administration. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers.
Sinclair, A. (1996), The Chameleon of Accountability: Forms and Discourses, Accounting, Organizations and Society, 20: 219-237.
Smith, T. B. (1991), The Comparative Analysis of Bureaucratic Accountability. Asian Journal of Public Administration, .13(1).
Strøm, K. (2000), Delegation and accountability in parliamentary democracies. European Journal of Political Research, 37: 261–289.
Stigler, George (1975) The Citizen and the State (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
TIB (2012), Integrity Pledge: Participatory Governance through Social Accountability, available at: http://www.ti-bangladesh.org/beta3/images/max_file/pub_Booklet_ccces_IP_August%2012.pdf
UNDP (2014), A budget of the people, online available at: http://www.bd.undp.org/content/bangladesh/en/home/ourwork/democraticgovernance/successstories/a-budget--of-the-people.html> Accessed on 31st May 2015.
Wade, H. W. R, and Forsyth, C.F. (1982), Administrative Law. England: Oxford University Press, 1982.
WB (2006), Social Accountability Sourcebook, Chapter 2, Social Accountability: What Does It Mean for the World Bank? Online available at:http://www.worldbank.org/socialaccountability_sourcebook/PrintVersions/Conceptual%2006.22.07.pdf
Younis, A. Talib and Mostafa, Md.Iqbal (2000), Accountability in Public Management and Administration in Bangladesh. England: Ashgate Publishing Limited.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
The authors when submitting their papers endorse and give permission as well to the Publisher Transition Academia Press to publish the article/paper in print and/or electronic format. Article/paper is defined as the final, definitive, and citable Version of Record, and includes the accepted manuscript in its final form, including the abstract, text, bibliography, and all accompanying tables, illustrations, data.
If/when an article is accepted for publication, Author will be asked to transfer copyright of the article to Transition Academia Press. Transition Academia Press will retain copyright of all published material and reserves the right to re-use any such material in any print and/or electronic format. Author willing to retain their copyright from the Editors might request a fair condition, on the base of a bilateral agreement.
