This paper seeks to identify and document how different modalities of democratic accountability are linked to improved service delivery in developing democracies. The aim is to better understand the workings of accountability mechanisms. This paper addresses a double democratic challenge: to strengthen formal and legal mechanisms that allow citizens to articulate and voice their policy concerns, and to encourage elected and non-elected representatives to effectively respond to the provision of public services.
The first part of the paper explores the concept of democratic accountability, and discusses the different approaches identified in the existing literature, including social and political accountability approaches. The second, empirical, part of the report offers a detailed review of 16 case studies in which citizens or politicians have held government officials accountable for the delivery of public services.
The missing aspects of democratic accountability – Key findings:
- The number of democratic agents, their incentives and the arenas in which they work have concrete implications for the nature of accountability relationships. It matters whether there are one or multiple account givers (or account holders), whether these are elected or appointed and whether they have short- or long-term ambitions. In a democracy, accountability relationships rarely take place between two single actors: a voter who delegates authority and a government official who responds.
- There is a gap between existing understandings of political and social accountability. Formal political accountability mechanisms (free and fair elections, freedom of information acts, independent legislative and judicial bodies) are not sufficient to meet the specific demands of citizens. Nor do they offer the best channels for obtaining immediate action from service providers. In addition, social accountability mechanisms (including social audits, street protests and community action) do not always elicit government responsiveness if they lack explicit mechanisms to sanction or reward the performance of government officials. Improved accountability requires strengthened rules and sanctions, but also a facilitated mobilization of social actors who demand greater government responsiveness.
- Democratic accountability can be disaggregated into four analytical dimensions: rules or standards, answerability, responsiveness and enforceability. The four dimensions of accountability offer a more nuanced discussion of how different mechanisms of social and political accountability interact to promote effective governmental responses to the demands of citizens.
- A positive association exists between effective accountability and the adequate provision of government services. The linkage between the two is complex, context-specific and difficult to assess. The reported findings, however, suggest that government officials have greater incentives to respond to citizens’ demands when organized voters mobilize, when they appeal to existing legal provisions, and there are credible sanctions for government inaction.
Policy recommendations to advance democracy support:
- Understanding country politics matters. Social activism and mobilization initiatives are likely to be diluted unless they clearly engage with defined rules, sanctions and political incentives to convert social activism into effective government action.
- Promoting selective social interventions. The paper acknowledges and documents the valuable contributions of citizens and organized civil society organizations demanding government responsiveness and better service delivery. The number of government agents, their temporal ambitions and political arenas in which they compete have a direct impact on citizens’ ability to hold governments to account.
- Facilitate positive feedback. Effective democratic accountability is a public good that can have positive implications for government officials. There is much to gain from focusing on the potential electoral benefits of delivering effective government services.
- Effective sanctions are important. One of the challenges emerging from this paper is how to align political motivation with legal or formal sanctions. The empirical evidence reported in this review demonstrates that cases of poor government performance are also likely to lack credible incentives for and effective sanctions on politicians.
