Rethinking Democratic Accountability

<DIV><P>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.</P></DIV>