Schillemans, T., Overman, S., Flinders, M. orcid.org/0000-0003-3585-9010 et al. (4 more authors) (2024) Public sector accountability styles in Europe comparing accountability and control of agencies in the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and the UK. Public Policy and Administration, 39 (1). pp. 125-146. ISSN 0952-0767
Abstract
This paper develops and applies the concept of accountability styles for analyzing and comparing accountability practices in different countries. This is relevant as there is considerable scholarship on public sector accountability but only very few comparative studies. Extant studies have shown that national styles of accountability are both marked by convergence as well as the resilience of national differences. The concept of accountability style is adopted to describe and interpret how and why accountability practices differ between administrative systems. It does so by analyzing practices of accountability of public sector agencies in four European democracies with different state traditions: the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and the UK. These countries vary with regards to state strength (interventionist propensity) and administrative concentration (high or low centralization). The analysis focuses on the accountability of arms’ length agencies which lends itself for comparisons across counties. The paper shows that the national political-administrative context crucially shapes practices of accountability and accountability regimes of agencies. The Norwegian accountability style is characterized as ‘centralized and convenient’. The UK-style is equally centralized yet not so convenient as it incurs high accountability-process costs on agencies. Switzerland is marked by limited hierarchical accountability. And the Dutch accountability style is comparatively ‘broad and informal’. State strength and administrative concentration explain some of the variance while historical legacies explain additional national variations.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
Keywords: | Accountability styles; accountability; administrative tradition; agencies; comparative public administration |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Politics and International Relations (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT UNSPECIFIED |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 30 Jun 2022 11:14 |
Last Modified: | 18 Dec 2023 14:50 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/09520767221098292 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:188588 |