LIST OF PANELS

Accountability systems have become central in the governance of multiple public sectors and domains (health, education, social care, security and so on) for a while now. Contemporary accountability systems are becoming increasingly sophisticated and adaptable to a complex and fluid world. They rely on a new wave of policy instruments that are data intensive in order to monitor performance; further, they provide incentives for those who comply with their logic and effects. Nonetheless, research that looks at the instrumentation and evolution of accountability systems from a policy instruments perspective is still scarce, and has been primarily confined to the particularities and boundaries of specific policy sectors. Policy instruments research can be organized in three independent, but interconnected, lines of inquiry, namely instrumentation, autonomization and constituency generation, all of which are highly relevant in the accountability debate.  

Instrumentation is grounded on the premise that instruments’ choice does not respond to rationalistic or pragmatic reasons, but rather to the complex interaction between institutions, interests and ideas operating at multiple scales (Peters, 2002). Accordingly, the instrumentation moment needs to be properly problematized (Capano and Lippi 2017) and approached from a multi-scalar perspective (Grek, Maroy and Verger 2020). Relevant questions in the accountability debate from the instrumentation perspective are: What are the set of problems posed by the choice and use of accountability instruments? What are the representations, interpretations and problematizations of the social world that are involved in the choice of accountability measures in different settings? And, how are the data infrastructures and metrics that constitute accountability systems constructed and by whom?

Autonomization refers to the fact that “policy instruments have an existence independent of the decisions that created them” (cf Kassim & Le Galès, 2010, p. 11) and evolve in ways that were unforeseen when first adopted. In many contexts, accountability systems expand their mission beyond their initial goals (i.e. ‘mission creep’ effect) or generate performative pressures that were not initially intended by design. The reputational or symbolic dimension that comes with any accountability system, or the emergence of unpredicted account-holders (the media, local governments, groups of users, among other intermediary organizations) can contribute to accelerate the performative pressure that accountability systems exert on public sector workers ( Busuioc and Loge, 2015). For this and other reasons, it is difficult to predict the form that any instrument will end up assuming, as well as their effects. (Bezes, 2007). Here, we encourage the identification of empirical cases of accountability instruments, metrics and techniques acquiring a 'life of their own', as well as analyses of the drivers behind and the transformative effects of the autonomization of accountability instruments in different areas of governance.

Finally, policy instruments create their own structures of opportunity, and privilege certain actors and their interests over others. Policy instruments incentivize thus the generation of new constituencies, which are comprised of actors “oriented towards developing, maintaining and expanding a specific instrumental model of governing” (Simons & Voß, 2018. p. 31). Thus, how are accountability instruments restructuring governance and altering power relations in different domains? What political and economic actors emerge around or are reinforced by accountability systems? Is the generation of a measurement industry a common feature of performance-based and data-intensive accountability in multiple sectors?

This workshop aims at bringing together scholars currently conducting research on accountability from a policy instruments perspective in different sectors and areas of governance - such as health, education, social care and security, to name a few. The paper should approach this topic from any of the lines of inquiry stated in the general objectives section, namely instrumentation, autonomization or instrument constituencies, or a combination of them. Ultimately, the panel aims at generating a cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary dialogue on the role and impact of accountability and datafication in the governance of different social services and sectors.