LIST OF PANELS

Persistent economic and financial crisis has caused the renewed urgency to focus of accountability (Ferry and Murphy 2017) as financial sustainability regarding public services has moved to the top of the agenda (NAO 2014). The overall towards governance which has led to the non-public actors’ involvement in governing has often implied “messy, iterative, a multifocal accountability processes” (Brandsma 2012, p.971). With the increased number of polycentric entities, accountability implications prove more crucial than ever before, leading to perception that understanding the challenges related to managing this multiple accountability in the network settings and the channels through which these mechanisms work is vital. Accountability has served as a counter mechanism to the growth of democratic deficit (Peters and Pierre 2010, Flinders 2001, Rhodes 2007) and the overall disenchantment with politics (OECD 2001, Martin 2003).

More often than not the concept of accountability has become a political catchword (Steets 2010), “the buzzword of modern governance” (Bovens et al 2014, p.1), “an appearing term” (Schedler 1999, p.13) which has been compared to “a hurrah-word, like ‘learning”, “responsibility” or “solidarity” and “nobody can be against” (Bovens 2005 p.182). In a similar vein Balla and Gormley (2017) refer to the concept as “one of those wonderful words that instantly evoke all sorts of positive images” (p.9). Consequently, this somehow magical context of accountability (Pollitt and Hupe 2011) is used in many contexts therefore the existing meanings of accountability are quite fuzzy (Kopell 2005, Steets 2010, Schedler 1995), slippery (Acar et al 2012) and of a ‘chameleon’ character (Quirk 1997). Accountability “now crops up everywhere performing all manner of analytical and rhethorical tasks and carrying most of the major burdens of democratic 'governance' “(Mulgan 2000, p.555). Mulgan and Uhr (2000) point out that “although the term ‘accountability’ is fundamental to governance discourse, expectations of accountability vary quite markedly with different institutional and community practices” (p.1).

Yet, the accountability challenge is not unique- it is accompanied by the correlated and overlapping questions of transparency, power, responsibility, liability, and representation, to name just a few (Salminen and Lehto 2012, Koppell 2005). Contemporary governance arrangements have to cut across the tangled lines of multiple accountabilities and respond to various challenges (Roberts 2002).

Public trust levels throughout the political system, participation rate and sense of accountability of public institutions and trust in the recent years have been plummeting (see for instance Svedin 2012, Clark and Veal 2011, Ranson 2013, OECD 2017, Quandt et al 2014). As Hetherington (2004) argues, waning trust in elected politicians is two-fold as it undermines both, the legitimacy of the institutions of representative democracy, as well as authority and competency of political leaders. This disenchantment with politics (Newton 2014, Hay 2017) , denoted by Papadopoulos (2003) as politikverdrossenheit has been linked to a growing divide between the governors and the ones governed (Hooghe and Zmerli 2013, Hetherington 2004) and has led to frustration and numerous protests (Quandt et al 2014, Hay 2007). 

Accountability, and especially its public dimension has become a core matter in the public management discussions (Christensen and Laegreid 2011). Despite the fact that the research on accountability in the context of partnership-type collaborative organizations (Acar 2011) is on the rise due to its “salient” character (Acar et al 2012, p.158), it so far remains highly fragmented, episodal (Brandsma and Schillemans 2012) and non-cumulative (Bovens et al 2014). Likewise, its meaning (Bovens 2010) and implications in the current milieu remain unclear (Acar et al 2012). As Drake (2012) concluded, accountability in multi stakeholder environment “suffers conceptual and practical confusion when interests pull in a variety of directions: (p.23) However the importance of accountability cannot be undermined. 

Bergsteiner (2002, p.13) has argued that the complexity of the conceptualisation from “different authors using the same words to mean quite different things, they use a multitude of different words when describing the same thing, they define terms in a circular fashion, or they invent new obscure and idiosyncratic words (such as responsibilization) where perfectly adequate words already exist” (p.13). While literature is abundant in relation to an assortment of definitions of accountability (Zimmermann and Cabinakova 2015), a few features that define the core of accountability overlap and a few situate the understanding of accountability in the context of partnership working, collaborative governance and networks, which by many are deemed to be the solution to the wicked problems the world is facing (reference).

However, considering that as each of them notions is an ideograph and an umbrella term in itself which does not allow for a straightforward operationalisation (Bovens 2007; 2010), this makes it an exceptionally challenging task. This multiplicity and overlapping meanings of concepts have been highlighted by Zimmermann and Cabinakova (2015) who put forward the discussion on whether “accountability has to be regarded as a special form of one or more of the aforementioned concepts or vice versa” (p.263).

Despite this surge of interest in accountability very little consensus about the understandings of accountability, its conceptualization and frames for studying has been reached (Steets 2010; Schillemans and Bovens 2011, Bovens et al 2014, Lindkvist and Llewellyn 2003, Bovens 2010), leading to construction of “ever-new shades of meaning” (Bovens et al 2014, p.2). Accountability has been heralded as the main element of democratic governance (Schillemans et al 2013). However, as argued by Zimmermann and Cabinakova (2015), many authors “refrain from clearly defining accountability and instead focus on measures they claim to be necessary in order to achieve accountability” (p.261).The paradox of complexity of the notion of accountability is well-captured by Schillemans and Bovens (2011) who argue that “accountability almost by definition seems to call for simplicity: it calls for clear divisions between oversight and execution of tasks, straightforward criteria as measurements for performance, and a logical hierarchy between agents and principals. Yet at the same time the worlds of public administration spots a growing number of dispersed and complex practices of governance” (p.1-2). The proposed session draws on the words of Bovens (2007, p.449) that “as an icon, the concept has become less useful for analytical purposes, and today resembles a dustbin filled with good intentions, loosely defined concepts and vague images of good governance” (2007, p.449). Lack of consensus and unified operational notion with regards to conceptualization of accountability has negative implications from a practical point of view.

While societies require greater levels of accountability from governing actors, in fact understanding of the accountability concept remains very contextual and elusive (Sinclair 1995). The conceptualization of the term is biased (Kabullah and Wahab 2016) and subjected to individual interpretations. Koppell (2005) argue that conceptual impreciseness has gone beyond the simple rhetorical enquiry and in fact has resulted in limitation to empirical progress. Thus, the panel welcomes different accountability-related contributions, including (but not limited to):

-       Papers which discuss the nature of accountability which presents several limitations that cause difficulty of fully grasping the theme including its sensitivity or conceptualization difficulties

-       Contributions on accountability as socially and contextually constructed mechanism/ tool

-       Papers which explore the contextual changes accountability is subject to.

-       Contributions on different understandings of accountability, particularly so those which capture the evolving nature of accountability

-       Papers that uncover the complexity of accountability

-       Papers that discuss the nexus of accountability and corruption, accountability and transparency, accountability and governance and alike

-       Papers that focus on understanding the redefined definition of accountability

-       Contributions on accountability paradoxes, accountability overloads and accountability deficits

-       Papers that examine accountability mechanisms and their effectiveness.

On this note we would like to emphasize that we are particularly interested in contributions of authors from the Global South and underrepresented areas.