Horizontal, Vertical, and Hybrid: An Empirical Look at the Forms of Accountability
| Author | Christopher G. Reddick,Tansu Demir,Bruce Perlman |
| Published date | 01 October 2020 |
| Date | 01 October 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0095399720912553 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2020
Article
Administration & Society
2020, Vol. 52(9) 1410 –1438
Horizontal, Vertical, and
© The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
Hybrid: An Empirical
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399720912553
DOI: 10.1177/0095399720912553
journals.sagepub.com/home/aas
Look at the Forms of
Accountability
Christopher G. Reddick1 , Tansu Demir1,
and Bruce Perlman2
Abstract
The existing accountability research in public administration either provides
conceptual analyses and definitions of forms of accountability or case studies
on accountability. They focus on the structure of responsibility or responding
behavior. This article is different in that it tests actors’ perceptions of the
three commonly cited forms of accountability identified in the literature—
vertical, horizontal, and hybrid. We test accountability on a national survey
sample of city managers across the United States. Our structural equation
model indicates that there is both vertical and horizontal accountability
present in city governments in the United States supporting a hybrid model.
The results of this study add to the literature because most of the existing
research on accountability does not test this important relationship nor
examine actors’ perceptions.
Keywords
bureaucratic accountability, accountability forms, structural equation
modeling, survey research, local government
1The University of Texas at San Antonio, USA
2University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, USA
Corresponding Author:
Christopher G. Reddick, Department of Public Administration, College of Public Policy, The
University of Texas at San Antonio, 501 W. Cesar Chavez Blvd., San Antonio, TX 78207,
USA.
Email: Chris.Reddick@utsa.edu
Reddick et al.
1411
Introduction
Accountability in public administration has long been studied. It is the means
by which public agencies manage diverse expectations generated from inside
and outside of an organization (Romzek & Dubnick, 1987). Accountability
can be seen as a relationship in which an actor feels an obligation to explain
and to justify conduct to someone else (Bovens et al., 2014). At its core,
accountability is present when public administrators are motivated to answer
for their actions or performance (Dubnick, 2005; Romzek & Dubnick, 1987).
Most of the existing research on accountability is conceptual, focusing on
the meaning of the term itself. Empirical research on accountability is lacking
with few quantitative studies and consisting of mostly case studies (Brandsma
& Schillemans, 2012). In this article, we test empirically two of the forms of
bureaucratic accountability most commonly found in the literature—vertical
and horizontal—against the reported views of the actors themselves. They
are tested using survey data from a national sample of city managers in the
United States. The principal research question of this article is as follows:
Research Question 1: Does an analysis of the survey data show a com-
mon view of accountability held by the respondents?
A related question is as follows: “What are the implications of this for the
three forms found in the literature (i.e., vertical, horizontal, or hybrid)?”
To answer these questions, this article is divided into six sections. The first
section is the brief introduction. The second section is a literature review of
accountability in public administration in which the notion of bureaucratic
accountability is discussed, and the concepts of vertical, horizontal, and
hybrid accountability are developed. The third section presents our research
design. Our fourth section provides statistical analysis using structural equa-
tion modeling (SEM). This is followed by a discussion of our results in the
fifth section. Finally, we present a conclusion in the last section.
Literature Review
The Definition and Practice of Accountability
Technically, accountability can be defined as a relationship between an actor
and another or a forum to which the actor must respond for specified actions.
Being accountable means that the actor has an obligation to explain and jus-
tify actions to the other or the forum which can pose questions, evaluate, and
pass judgment on the actions. The actor should be able and feel obligated
1412
Administration & Society 52(9)
(motivated) to inform the forum about the conduct in question and there
should be an attempt to explain and justify the actions. Finally, both parties
know that judgment will be passed on the actor and consequences provided
(Bovens et al., 2008; Willems & Van Dooren, 2012).
This structural and practical notion of accountability is taken from the
Westminster system of government with the electorate having the right to be
informed about the actions and expenditures of the executive and legislative
branches of government. Accountability can be seen in terms of ministerial
responsibility and the detection of fraud. Ultimately, the minister is respon-
sible for what happens in an agency and is accountable for any faults (Kluvers,
2003). Parliament requires that officials and ministers participate directly in
public accountability practices. The original idea was that Parliament had the
right to require a public justification from those officials that were responsi-
ble for the management of public accounts (Uhr, 1993). In most democracies,
the dominant form of public accountability is the traditional top-down or
vertical form. This has been especially true for those parliamentary systems
that operate under a system of ministerial responsibility such as Belgium, The
Netherlands, and Germany. According to Aucoin and Heintzman (2000),
accountability serves three purposes in practice: control of the abuse and mis-
use of public authority, providing an assurance to the law and public service
values, and encouraging and promoting continuous improvement and better
public management.
Answerability. In public administration, notions of accountability are tied to
the requirement that appointed public servants answer to those who appointed
them for the actions they take in government organizations or bureaucracies.
In other words, the concept of accountability implies answerability, in that
administrators are accountable to the degree to which they are required to
answer for their actions (O’Loughlin, 1990). Traditionally, principal–agent
theory was the most common way of analyzing accountability. This rests on
the idea that the appropriate focus to examine accountability was the struc-
tural relationship created by the delegation of responsibility from appointers
to appointees and the resulting actor–other dyad. At first, the emphasis was
on the structural relationship of command and compliance and not on the
perceived or felt obligation to comply or the source of commands.
External structural accountability and a sense of responsibility. In the 1930s, an
influential debate took place, which presented two competing views of
accountability: one focusing on it as an external responsibility created by
structure and legitimizing coercive compliance and the other as a felt obliga-
tion grounded in a sense of responsibility. This debate was between Carl
Reddick et al.
1413
Friedrich, who emphasized the need for an inculcation of internal profes-
sional standards and codes to ensure administrative accountability, and Her-
man Finer, who believed in the creation of external checks and balances for
accountability (Wang, 2002). Finer (1941) focused on the external structural
relationship and forces needed to ensure responsibility. Finer took the ortho-
dox Weberian view of the civil servant’s obedience to the government, call-
ing for “subservience” (Bovens, 2010). Friedrich, however, argued for clear
discretion for bureaucrats and the higher purposes of public service (Mulgan,
2000). Friedrich argued for a sense of personal responsibility to ensure the
accountability relationship (Jackson, 2009) and looked upon responsibility as
a personal virtue. Faithful performance, Friedrich believed, must be elicited
and not compelled (Jackson, 2009). This article focuses more closely on this
latter idea.
While the debate between Friedrich and Finer can be best understood in
the context of national governments, the idea of forced accountability and a
sense of responsibility as presented in this article focuses on local govern-
ments which have their own unique context. In that context and the context
of this research, often public officials are faced with dealing with citizens
directly because policy implementation decisions and actions greatly, imme-
diately, and obviously affect the local community. It is common for a city
manager to be engaged with the public repeatedly on a policy, especially with
the budget process (Ebdon, 2002). Citizens tend to be more involved in pol-
icy formulation and again during implementation than they are in the federal
government. Local leaders must engage the public at various stages to get
their support for both policy formulation and implementation. Moreover, the
sources of oversight are more numerous at the local level. Evaluating sources
of oversight on local government managers, Koehler (1973) cites citizen
complaints, business community, professional associations, and local news-
papers as important means of information, and argues that they help city
managers direct policy implementation better. Abney and Lauth (1985), in
their...
To continue reading
Request your trial