Rethinking Democratic Accountability
eBook - PDF

Rethinking Democratic Accountability

  1. 328 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Rethinking Democratic Accountability

About this book

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.

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Yes, you can access Rethinking Democratic Accountability by Robert D. Behn in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Politics & International Relations & American Government. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Front Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Information
  4. Table of Contents
  5. Preface
  6. What Do We Mean by Accountability, Anyway?
  7. Performance and the New Public Management
  8. The Traditional Public Administration Paradigm of Accountability
  9. The Questions of Democratic Accountability
  10. Discretion and Trust
  11. Retrospective Accountability for Performance
  12. A New Compact of Mutual Collective Responsibility
  13. The Cooperation Challenge
  14. Fostering Cooperation with Conventions and Norms
  15. Evolving a Charter Agency
  16. 360-Degree Accountability for Performance
  17. Notes
  18. Index
  19. Back Cover