Governance Networks in the Public Sector

Ferdous Arfina Osman Ph.D
University of Dhaka

 In general, accountability means someone's
answerability to someone else for carrying out assigned
tasks or activities
 Accountability means having obligation to answer
questions regarding decisions or actions.
 In general, accountability involves the power of one
actor to make demands upon another to provide
information about, or justification for his/her actions


Public accountability implies the answerability of public officials
(both elected and appointed) to the public for accomplishing their
assigned tasks or duties and for their behavior and action.
Absence of accountability may result into the rise of corruption
through –
 misallocation of public resources;
 failure of public resources to attain desired outcomes;
 weak performance by service providers ;
 lack of awareness in part of the service beneficiaries to
"…avail themselves of services"
 (WB, 2004).

 Broadly, based on the reporting relationship,
accountability takes two forms:
 Horizontal Accountability: Routine answerability
taking place within agencies through reporting
relationships and through interactions
 Vertical accountability(between government and
citizens/ hierarchical accountability within the
organization): answerability relates directly to
transparency

• Based on the nature of answerability,accountability
takes the following forms:
• i) Financial Accountability: Examination of
compliance of officials and agencies with laws,
regulations, and procedures for the transparent
allocation, expenditure, and reporting of financial
resources
• Ii) Political/democratic accountability:
responsiveness to citizens and the fulfillment of
public trust
• Iii) Performance accountability: accounting for
performance in the light of agreed-upon
performance targets. Its focus is on the services,
outputs and results of public agencies and
programs.

 Current complex society needs a shift from a traditional top-
down way of problem solving to a more horizontal cooperative
approach, called network
 The new approach of governance focusses on networks
suggesting that state power is widely dispersed and the actors
need to coordinate their actions and strategies in order to solve
the public problems.
 Rise of markets and networks has disrupted the traditional
lines of accountability

 Klijn and Koppenjan (2014) defined governance
network as sets of autonomous and interdependent
actors (individuals, groups, organizations) that have
developed enduring relationships in governing
specific public problems or policies.
 As a form of governance, network is characterized
by a plurality of actors, as they are found within
markets, and the coordinated efforts among them in
order to pursue collective goals.

 network governance requires its accountability to
multiple stakeholders, including private enterprises,
local government authorities, and non-profit or
third-sector organizations.
 Such collaborative or partnership-based structure
of accountability have emerged in many developing
countries
 Shift from monocentric system of government to a
polycentric system of government raises some
serious accountability challenges

 Koppenjan and Klijn (2004) identified three types of
complexities in governance networks:
i) substantive complexity: Multiple actors may have different
perceptions of the problem and may also interpret the available
information differently.
ii)strategic complexity: As actors may have different
perceptions about a problem, they also may have the liberty to
make their own choices and strategies for its solution.
iii)Institutional complexity: Actors often work from different
institutional backgrounds their behavior is guided by outlooks,
organizational arrangements, and rules of different
organizations, which may cause clashes between different
institutional regimes

 Accountability takes three forms within
governance networks
 i) democratic
 ii) market
 iii)administrative

 In democratic systems political accountability may be
framed as democratic accountability through which
both citizens and the representatives they elect serve
as the actors to whom accountability must be
rendered
 Laws, regulations, citizen rights are the standards to
hold public bureaucracies accountable.
 In fact, accountability is considered as a basic "human
right".
 Accordingly, accountability allows the citizens to claim
their rights and at the same time, accountability
mechanisms can play an effective role to prevent
corruption which will allow the state to move towards
development (WB, 2011).

• Market accountability has two components:
• i) shareholder accountability:in privately owned
business, owners have to maximize profit,
accountability calls for the alignment of
performance measures with profitability
• Ii) consumer accountability:market competition is
the central mode. Ability of consumers to choose
between alternatives, competing goods and
services
• In a competitive market, the main mechanism of
responsiveness is customer choice, the capacity of
consumer to exit to the alternative providers

• Vertical and horizontal ties with bureaucracy
• Exists across all forms of social organizations
• Focuses on processes, procedures and
practices that are employed in the
administration of formally organized social
network

• Bureaucratic accountability:superior subordinate
relationship, Standards: performance measures,
administrative procedures, organizational charts
• Professional accountabilityof experts and
professionals which may be maintained through
compliance with professional best practices,
rules, codes and ethics
• Collaborative accountability: binds actors as
peers or partners at the interpersonal level ,
foundation is more of durability of relationship
than trust

 Traditional means:
 External means of accountability: legislative
committees, parliamentary questions, financial
audits, ministerial controls, judicial reviews,
advisory committees, ombudsmen, anti-
corruption agencies, public hearings, opinion
polls, and media scrutiny
 Internal means of accountability: official rules,
codes of conducts, administrative hierarchy,
performance evaluation, organizational culture,
and professional ethics.

 the traditional democratic measures of
accountability (e.g. legislative committees,
ministerial supervision, administrative tribunals,
judicial control, media scrutiny), found mostly
nonoperational due to the overdeveloped status
and expansive interventionist role of bureaucracy,
(Haque, 1998).

 Recent market led state reforms ( with emphasis on market
competition, non-intervention, debureaucratization) has critical
impacts on public accountability (Romzek, 2000).
 Accountability for what?
 Shift of accountability from inputs and processes to
outputs and results, from vertical (superior-
subordinate) to horizontal (shared or joint) structures,
from citizens' rights to customers' demands, and so on
(Haque, 2000).
 In most Western democracies, there has been an increasing focus
on efficiency and economy rather than equity and fairness as the
primary criteria of public accountability.

 Greater emphasis is being placed uponperformance,
efficiency, value-for-money and customer satisfaction
rather than citizen's entitlement and public opinion as
determining factors for accountability
 Performance, measured in terms of outputs or results, has
become one of the central benchmarks for public accountability
(Moe, 2001 :293).
 many developing countries have adopted instruments
like performance indicators and targets, performance
contracts, output-based budgets, quality controls for
ensuring accountability

 Accountability Ensured "How “?
 while the earlier means of accountability were based on a top-down hierarchical model
of authority structure and tight budget control, recently there has been a shift towards
a more flexible horizontal model that emphasizes shared or collaborative structure and
budgetary autonomy (Ryan and Walsh, 2004:621-622).

 There is a growing trend towards the so-called joined-up government based on public-
private partnership that requires its accountability to multiple stakeholders, including
private enterprises, local government authorities, and non-profit or third-sector
organizations.
 the means of accountability has shifted from ex ante procedural control to ex
post result-based control (OECD, 2005:11).
 In the developing world, such a trend toward public accountability based on
horizontal structures and result-based controls has gradually emerged in various
Asian, African, and Latin American countries (see Haque, 2000).

 Accountability to "Whom "
 Prior to the recent shift towards the reinvented state, the traditional practice of public
accountability in most democracies always emphasized the citizens or the public as the
final agent to whom all public servants (both elected and appointed) were to be held
accountable.
 Under the emerging reinvented state, the result-based accountability of public officials
is more towards customers or clients, including private entrepreneurs, non-profit
organizations, and ordinary customers or users of services, which some scholars call
"multicentric accountability" (Barberis, 1998; Zarei, 2000).
 The idea of accountability to individual customers rather than collective citizens is
advocated by some authors who are in favor of reinvention is governance

Under the current reinvented state,
 the result-based accountability of public officials
is more towards customers or clients, including
private entrepreneurs, non-profit organizations,
and ordinary customers or users of services,
which some scholars call "multicentric
accountability" (Barberis, 1998; Zarei, 2000).

 More than one accountability structures are in
play
 Accountability failures may take place as a
series of trade offs between the political,
bureaucratic and professional accountability
structures are in play.

 Accountability based on the criteria of
performance and efficiency may marginalize
government's accountability for ensuring
citizens' rights, representation, and welfare,
and thus, weaken the democratic principles of
accountability (Haque, 2000:602).
 in relation to performance measurement, there
is also a concern regarding the difficulty in
measuring the government's outcomes or
results and relating them to outputs (Cameron,
2004:62).

 In the developing world, where there is a
relative lack of transparency and proper
monitoring, an emphasis on result- based
rather than process-based accountability may
encourage public agencies to manipulate their
results or outcomes (Lodhia and Burritt, 2004).
 Contracting out/Outsourcing may pose a
serious challenge to certain traditional means
of accountability as the contracted service
providers do not often disclose adequate
information and are not directly accountable to
the legislature and ministers

 New directions of accountability have not only
failed to resolve existing problems, they seem to
have created a new set of constraints to
accountability.
 Public accountability must go beyond the criteria o
efficiency and value-for- money and democratic
accountability must not be sacrificed just for
managerial autonomy or flexibility;
 Final judgment of public accountability should
belong to the public.