Access, accountability and authority: Corruption and the democratic process

Crime, Law and Social Change

Volumn 36, Issue 4, 2001, Pages 357-377

  Philp, Mark ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0035540555     PISSN: 09254994     EISSN: 15730751     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1012075027147     Document Type: Article

References (24)

1. In this paper I focus principally on access and accountability. However, a formal definition of political authority is advisable, to prevent misunderstanding. It is also helpful to clarify the relationship between authority and power gestured to in my opening comments. A has power over B to the extent that A can get B to do what B would not otherwise do, and where what B does is what A wants B to do. More informally, and broadly, A has power in so far as she can bring about a certain set of intended effects with respect to states of affairs in the world and the actions of others, and her power is greater the more extensive the effects she can bring about, and the more be is able to overcome the resistance of others to the bringing about of these effects. Political authority is a form of power (by being a sub-set of cases captured in the first clause of the definition), distinguished, on the one hand, by the claim of a right to rule by A, such that A claims a right to determine B's actions in some sphere or spheres, and on the other by a recognition of that right by B. B complies with A's authority when B conforms to A's command, and does so because he recognises A's right to command him in this context. Where A claims a right to rule which B denies, that rule claims authority, but is buttressed in its exercise by other forms of power (such as coercion) - authority in such cases is exerted (in the sense of put forward) and asserted (claiming a right), but not exercised (because, as such, it does not take effect). More broadly, and informally, political authority involves the claim by certain public institutions to a right to regulate and determine the conduct of citizens in certain contexts. Political authority is greater the greater the sphere in which it commands willing compliance, the more willing the compliance it commands, and the greater its role in ordering, conciliating and coordination the actions and interests of members of a society. Political authority is weak where it acts as a poor coordinator for the actions and interests of members of a society, where its claim to a right to rule is not widely legitimated and accepted, and where its sphere of action is both small and of little significance in people's lives. Clearly, access can enhance authority (where the commands are seen as flowing from my own will), or curtail it (by undermining its independence so that we make it commands us do only what we want to do anyway), as can accountability - by enhancing legitimacy, or by undermining people's confidence, or by curtailing the scope of authority. Clearly, too, authority need not depend on either access or accountability - the authority of the Supreme Court is pretty much free standing from both.
2. F.F. Ridley and Alan Doig, (eds.) Sleaze: Politicians, Private Interests and Public Reactions (Oxford University Press/Hansard Society, Oxford, 1995).
3. Jon Elster, The Cement of Society (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989) pp. 268-272.
4. Adam Przeworski, Susan C. Stokes and Bernard Manin, "Introduction" in Manin, Przeworski and Stokes (eds.), Democracy, Accountability and Representation (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999) p. 10.
5. John Dunn, "Situating Democratic Political Accountability," in Adam Przeworski, Susan C. Stokes and Bernard Manin (eds.), Democracy, Accountability and Representation (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999) p. 338.
6. Note also Geoffrey Marshall's additional distinction which arises from a breaking of the relationship between answerability and control. Ministers may now be answerable for institutions over which they have no formal control, or for which they share formal control with other bodies. This further complicates the hierarchical model of political accountability. Constitutional Conventions: The Rules and Forms of Political Accountability (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1986) pp. 77-79.
7. Very unusually the act may be legitimated ex ante by a popular mandate - but this does not necessarily settle either the question of whether the act is legitimately done, nor whether it will be regarded as legitimate ex post. 8. Ibid., 340.
8. See, e.g., the case of the management buy-out of soft ware programmes in West Wiltshire District Council, discussed in Alan Doig, "Politics and Public Sector Ethics: the Impact of Change in the United Kingdom" in Walter Little and Eduardo Posada-Carb́ (eds.), Political Corruption in Europe and Latin America (Institute of Latin American Studies/Macmillan, 1996) p. 183.
9. See Frank Anechiarico and James B. Jacobs, The Pursuit of Absolute Integrity: How corruption control makes government ineffective (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1996).
10. See Mark Bovens, The Quest for responsibility: Accountability and Citizenship in Complex Organisations (Cambridge university Press, Cambridge, 1998), for an extended and illuminating discussion of the difficulties of accountability in large organisations.
11. See for example, Andras Sajo, "Corruption, Clientelism, and the Future of the Constitutional State in Europe," East European Constitutional Review, Spring, 1998, 37-46.
12. Some 70,000 are recorded as attending. A. Giddens, The Third Way (Polity Press, Cambridge, 1998) p. 76. This instance is some 20 or more years ago. My thanks to Graham Box for the reference.
13. Based on Offe's account in J. Elster, C. Offe, U. Preuss et al., Institutional Design in Post-Communist Societies: Rebuilding the Ship at Sea (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998) p. 30.
14. After John Rawls's account in Political Liberalism (Columbia University Press, New York, 1993) p. 147.
15. Robert D. Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1993). The term is taken from James Coleman's Foundations of Social Theory (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1990).
16. Robert D. Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1993). The term is taken from James Coleman's Foundations of Social Theory (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1990).
17. See Andras Sajo, op cit.
18. There is also evidence that politicians in America with records of corruption do not find this a disadvantage when seeking re-election, which suggests that someone's weakness in office can be seen as providing his electorate with an opportunity for future access rather than providing an occasion for turning formal accountability into political accountability.
19. See B. Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory politics for a new age (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1984); Richard Dagger, Civic Virtues: Rights, Citizenship and Republican Liberalism (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997). Philip Pettit's Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom in Government (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997) is more subtle. See my "Motivating liberal citizenship" in C. McKinnon and I. Hampsher-Monk, The Demands of Citizenship (forthcoming Continuum, 2000).
20. See B. Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory politics for a new age (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1984); Richard Dagger, Civic Virtues: Rights, Citizenship and Republican Liberalism (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997). Philip Pettit's Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom in Government (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997) is more subtle. See my "Motivating liberal citizenship" in C. McKinnon and I. Hampsher-Monk, The Demands of Citizenship (forthcoming Continuum, 2000).
21. See B. Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory politics for a new age (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1984); Richard Dagger, Civic Virtues: Rights, Citizenship and Republican Liberalism (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997). Philip Pettit's Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom in Government (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997) is more subtle. See my "Motivating liberal citizenship" in C. McKinnon and I. Hampsher-Monk, The Demands of Citizenship (forthcoming Continuum, 2000).
22. See B. Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory politics for a new age (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1984); Richard Dagger, Civic Virtues: Rights, Citizenship and Republican Liberalism (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997). Philip Pettit's Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom in Government (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997) is more subtle. See my "Motivating liberal citizenship" in C. McKinnon and I. Hampsher-Monk, The Demands of Citizenship (forthcoming Continuum, 2000).
23. Anechiarico and Jacobs (202): ". . . there is no substitute for a professional civil service populated by competent, committed, enthusiastic public servants who like their work and feel adequately compensated and appreciated. In short, if public officials are treated like second-or third-class citizens, they will act accordingly, and no amount of laws and controls will remedy the situation. . . Poorly paid, poorly treated public employees will be alienated and demoralized. Under such circumstances corruption is easily rationalized." Although see Christopher Hood's "The Politics of Fasting and Feasting" in F.F. Ridley and Alan Doig (eds.), Sleaze, for a recognition of the force of Tocqueville's caveat that democracies are resistant to paying their public servants more.
24. That is, they must see their standing as a function of their integrity, rather than, for example, a function of their loyalty. In the past, loyalty to the crown, for example, often fudged the distinction - rather in the way that the Ponting trial in Britain sought to fudge the difference between the interests of the government of the day and the interests of the state. For democratic accountability, it has to be clear that the reward is for integrity, not just service!