Social Accountability Between Consensus and Confrontation: Developing a Theoretical Framework for Societal Accountability Relationships of Public Sector Organizations

• Published date: 01 August 2021
• Author: Lars Brummel
• DOI: 10.1177/0095399720988529
• Date: 01 August 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399720988529

Administration & Society

2021, Vol. 53(7) 1046 –1077

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/0095399720988529

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Article

Social Accountability

Between Consensus

and Confrontation:

Developing a Theoretical

Framework for

Societal Accountability

Relationships of Public

Sector Organizations

Lars Brummel1

Abstract

Numerous politicians and scholars have argued that accountability of

public authorities to citizens, clients, and societal actors is needed in the

current age of governance. Academic debates about social accountability

are however scattered with incompatible conceptualizations, high normative

expectations, and sobering findings. This article develops an in-depth

framework that provides a comprehensive definition and typology of social

accountability. It discusses major empirical challenges to social accountability

and multiple behavioral styles within social accountability. By distinguishing

consensual and confrontational styles of account-holding and account-giving,

this article shows that social accountability could serve multiple purposes

that go beyond rosy ideals.

1Utrecht University, The Netherlands

Corresponding Author:

Lars Brummel, School of Governance, Utrecht University, Bijlhouwerstraat 6,

3511 ZC Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Email: L.Brummel@uu.nl

988529AASXXX10.1177/0095399720988529Administration & SocietyBrummel

research-article2021

Brummel 1047

Keywords

social accountability, public accountability, citizen participation, administration

and democracy, public sector organizations

Introduction

Public organizations often operate in a “complex web of accountabilities”

in which they may be scrutinized by multiple accountability forums

(Koppell, 2005; Page, 2006; Willems & Van Dooren, 2012). In recent years,

the academic literature has paid increasing attention to the participation of

citizens, clients, and societal actors in holding public organizations to

account (e.g., Mizrahi & Minchuk, 2019; Ojala et al., 2019; Reddick et al.,

2020). Bovens (2007) has argued that there is in many Western democracies

an urge for “more direct and explicit accountability relations between pub-

lic agencies, on the one hand, and clients, citizens and civil society, on the

other hand” (p. 457). Engaging the public in public accountability is often

viewed with normative expectations (McCandless, 2001; Moore, 2014). As

“accountability” is seen as a “golden concept” (Bovens, 2007, p. 448),

direct accountability of public organizations to the general public would be

its “superlative” (Schillemans, 2007, p. 185).

Accountability to citizens, clients, or the public at large—referred to as

social accountability—has been promoted as a means to improve alignment

between policy implementation and the interests and needs of citizens and

societal stakeholders (Meijer & Schillemans, 2009, p. 259) and as a response

to an assumed lack of trust in government (Bovens, 2007, p. 457). As social

accountability stresses direct citizens’ and clients’ influence on public service

providers, it has become an attractive component of many public manage-

ment reforms (Mattei et al., 2018). The disaggregation of public services to

(quasi-) autonomous executive organizations has been said to increase the

need for alternative means of accountability as an additional control mecha-

nism as the lines of traditional hierarchical accountability through a direct

chain of delegation attenuates (e.g., Flinders, 2001; Strøm, 2000; Thatcher &

Sweet, 2002). Social accountability gives citizens some direct control over

these public sector organizations and, as such, it forms a potential remedy

against problems of democratic legitimacy and the possibilities of “account-

ability deficits” (cf. Mulgan, 2014). In addition, the changing political envi-

ronment in most Western democracies—with rising populism, intense

politicization, and concerns about eroding support for public institutions

(e.g., Flinders, 2011; Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2012; Wood, 2016)—has

strengthened the call to create more direct and participatory forms of account-

ability (see also Mizrahi & Minchuk, 2019, pp. 334–335).

1048 Administration & Society 53(7)

Despite increasing academic and popular attention, the conceptualization

of social accountability within the public administration literature remains

relatively underdeveloped. Although societal forms of accountability are

included in many public administration frameworks of accountability (e.g.,

Bovens, 2007; Sinclair, 1995; Willems & Van Dooren, 2012), the concept of

social accountability often remains loosely discussed and demarcated.

Whereas social accountability empirically often goes hand in hand with “hor-

izontal” and “voluntary” accountability (Bovens et al., 2014, p. 12; see also

Koop, 2014; Schillemans, 2008), it has been theoretically developed to a

lesser extent and not always been clearly distinguished from those two. In

addition, some authors question whether forms of social accountability could

“represent a full accountability mechanism” (Lindén, 2015, p. 1009) and

include all necessary elements of accountability as information provision,

discussion, and consequences (cf. Bovens, 2007).

Furthermore, the literature about social accountability faces a large varia-

tion in scope and precision about the set of account-holders to whom organi-

zations give an account. Account-giving could be directed to specific

(individual) citizens (Meijer, 2007), but also to society at large or an imagi-

nary “court of public opinion” (Christensen & Lodge, 2018; Moore, 2014).

Public agencies render account to news media (Maggetti, 2012) or institu-

tionalized forums, such as societal councils (Lindén, 2015). In recent years,

digital changes, as the rise of social media, have provided increasing oppor-

tunities for new and alternative forms of accountability (Lindquist & Huse,

2017; Ojala et al., 2019). Still, a clear overview of the different types of

account-holders within forms of social accountability is lacking.

Outcomes that might be expected from social accountability provide a

further gap in our knowledge. The potentials and pitfalls of social account-

ability are heavily debated. Some authors presented social accountability as

a highly democratic ideal, considering it as a renewal of democracy (cf.

McCandless, 2001; Moore, 2014). Others are more concerned about dysfunc-

tionalities that are associated with social accountability (Flinders & Moon,

2011; Gebreiter & Hidayah, 2019). As Brandsen et al. (2008) argue, social

accountability might be a concept “infused with too many daydreams” (p. 19).

Given these challenges in the literature, the purpose of this article is to

develop a conceptual framework to study the functioning of social account-

ability of public sector organizations in practice. Starting with a systematic

and comprehensive inventory of academic research on the subject, a search

via research databases such as Web of Science and Scopus shows the increas-

ing use of “social accountability” in scientific publications since 1980 across

multiple disciplines (see Figure 1). However, social accountability is scat-

tered across various disciplines. Besides public administration, “social