@article{JantzKlenkLarsenetal.2018, author = {Jantz, Bastian and Klenk, Tanja and Larsen, Flemming and Wiggan, Jay}, title = {Marketization and Varieties of Accountability Relationships in Employment Services}, series = {Administration \& society}, volume = {50}, journal = {Administration \& society}, number = {3}, publisher = {Sage Publ.}, address = {Thousand Oaks}, issn = {0095-3997}, doi = {10.1177/0095399715581622}, pages = {321 -- 345}, year = {2018}, abstract = {In the past decade, European countries have contracted out public employment service functions to activate working-age benefit clients. There has been limited discussion of how contracting out shapes the accountability of employment services or is shaped by alternative democratic, administrative, or network forms of accountability. This article examines employment service accountability in Germany, Denmark, and Great Britain. We find that market accountability instruments are additional instruments, not replacements. The findings highlight the importance of administrative and political instruments in legitimizing marketized service provision and shed light on the processes that lead to the development of a hybrid accountability model.}, language = {en} } @misc{JantzJann2018, author = {Jantz, Bastian and Jann, Werner}, title = {Mapping accountability changes in labour market administrations}, volume = {79}, number = {3}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-403642}, pages = {22}, year = {2018}, abstract = {The article explores how recent changes in the governance of employment services in three European countries (Denmark, Germany and Norway) have influenced accountability relationships. The overall assumption in the growing literature about accountability is that the number of actors involved in accountability arrangements is rising, that accountability relationships are becoming more numerous and complex, and that these changes may lead to contradictory accountability relationships, and finally to 'multi accountability disorder'. The article tries to explore these assumptions by analysing the different actors involved and the information requested in the new governance arrangements in all three countries. It concludes that the considerable changes in organizational arrangements and more managerial information demanded and provided have led to more shared forms of accountability. Nevertheless, a clear development towards less political or administrative accountability could not be observed.}, language = {en} } @misc{KlenkPieper2017, author = {Klenk, Tanja and Pieper, Jonas}, title = {Accountability in a privatized welfare state}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-403251}, pages = {31}, year = {2017}, abstract = {One of the most striking features of recent public sector reform in Europe is privatization. This development raises questions of accountability: By whom and for what are managers of private for-profit organizations delivering public goods held accountable? Analyzing accountability mechanisms through the lens of an institutional organizational approach and on the empirical basis of hospital privatization in Germany, the article contributes to the empirical and theoretical understanding of public accountability of private actors. The analysis suggests that accountability is not declining but rather multiplying. The shifts in the locus and content of accountability cause organizational stress for private hospitals.}, language = {en} } @article{Ganghof2016, author = {Ganghof, Steffen}, title = {Reconciling Representation and Accountability: Three Visions of Democracy Compared}, series = {Government \& opposition : an international journal of comparative politics}, volume = {51}, journal = {Government \& opposition : an international journal of comparative politics}, publisher = {Cambridge Univ. Press}, address = {Cambridge}, issn = {0017-257X}, doi = {10.1017/gov.2015.15}, pages = {209 -- 233}, year = {2016}, abstract = {An egalitarian approach to the fair representation of voters specifies three main institutional requirements: proportional representation, legislative majority rule and a parliamentary system of government. This approach faces two challenges: the under-determination of the resulting democratic process and the idea of a trade-off between equal voter representation and government accountability. Linking conceptual with comparative analysis, the article argues that we can distinguish three ideal-typical varieties of the egalitarian vision of democracy, based on the stages at which majorities are formed. These varieties do not put different relative normative weight onto equality and accountability, but have different conceptions of both values and their reconciliation. The view that accountability is necessarily linked to 'clarity of responsibility', widespread in the comparative literature, is questioned - as is the idea of a general trade-off between representation and accountability. Depending on the vision of democracy, the two values need not be in conflict.}, language = {en} } @misc{Ganghof2016, author = {Ganghof, Steffen}, title = {Reconciling representation and accountability}, series = {Government and Opposition}, journal = {Government and Opposition}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-413456}, pages = {25}, year = {2016}, abstract = {An egalitarian approach to the fair representation of voters specifies three main institutional requirements: proportional representation, legislative majority rule and a parliamentary system of government. This approach faces two challenges: the under-determination of the resulting democratic process and the idea of a trade-off between equal voter representation and government accountability. Linking conceptual with comparative analysis, the article argues that we can distinguish three ideal-typical varieties of the egalitarian vision of democracy, based on the stages at which majorities are formed. These varieties do not put different relative normative weight onto equality and accountability, but have different conceptions of both values and their reconciliation. The view that accountability is necessarily linked to clarity of responsibility', widespread in the comparative literature, is questioned - as is the idea of a general trade-off between representation and accountability. Depending on the vision of democracy, the two values need not be in conflict.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Jantz2015, author = {Jantz, Bastian}, title = {The dynamics of accountability in public sector reforms}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-78131}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {182}, year = {2015}, abstract = {This PhD thesis is essentially a collection of six sequential articles on dynamics of accountability in the reformed employment and welfare administration in different countries. The first article examines how recent changes in the governance of employment services in three European countries (Denmark, Germany and Norway) have influenced accountability relationships from a very wide-ranging perspective. It starts from the overall assumption in the literature that accountability relationships are becoming more numerous and complex, and that these changes may lead to multiple accountability disorder. The article explores these assumptions by analyzing the different actors involved and the information requested in the new governance arrangements in all three countries. It concludes that the considerable changes in organizational arrangements and more managerial information demanded and provided have led to more shared forms of accountability. Nevertheless, a clear development towards less political or administrative accountability could not be observed. The second article analyzes how the structure and development of reform processes affect accountability relationships and via what mechanisms. It is distinguished between an instrumental perspective and an institutional perspective and each of these perspectives takes a different view on the link between reforms and concrete action and results. By taking the welfare reforms in Norway and Germany as an example, it is shown that the reform outcomes in both countries are the result of a complex process of powering, puzzling and institutional constraints where different situational interpretations of problems, interests and administrative legacies had to be balanced. Accountability thus results not from a single process of environmental necessity or strategic choice, but from a dynamic interplay between different actors and institutional spheres. The third article then covers a specific instrument of public sector reforms, i.e. the increasing use of performance management. The article discusses the challenges and ambiguities between performance management and different forms of accountability based on the cases of the reformed welfare administration in Norway and Germany. The findings are that the introduction of performance management creates new accountability structures which influence service delivery, but not necessarily in the direction expected by reform agents. Observed unintended consequences include target fixation, the displacement of political accountability and the predominance of control aspects of accountability. The fourth article analyzes the accountability implications of the increasingly marketized models of welfare governance. It has often been argued that relocating powers and discretion to private contractors involve a trade-off between democratic accountability and efficiency. However, there is limited empirical evidence of how contracting out shapes accountability or is shaped by alternative democratic or administrative forms of accountability. Along these lines the article examines employment service accountability in the era of contracting out in Germany, Denmark and Great Britain. It is found that market accountability instruments are complementary instruments, not substitutes. The findings highlight the importance of administrative and political instruments in legitimizing marketized service provision and shed light on the processes that lead to the development of a hybrid accountability model. The fifth and sixth articles focus on the diagonal accountability relationships between public agencies, supreme audit institutions (SAI) and parental ministry or parliament. The fifth article examines the evolving role of SAIs in Denmark, Germany and Norway focusing particularly on their contribution to public accountability and their ambivalent relationship with some aspects of public sector reform in the welfare sector. The article analyzes how SAIs assess New Public Management inspired reforms in the welfare sector in the three countries. The analysis shows that all three SAIs have taken on an evaluative role when judging New Public Management instruments. At the same time their emphasis on legality and compliance can be at odds with some of the operating principles introduced by New Public Management reforms. The sixth article focuses on the auditing activities of the German SAI in the field of labor market administration as a single in-depth case study. The purpose is to analyze how SAIs gain impact in diagonal accountability settings. The results show that the direct relationship between auditor and auditee based on cooperation and trust is of outstanding importance for SAIs to give effect to their recommendations. However, if an SAI has to rely on actors of diagonal accountability, it is in a vulnerable position as it might lose control over the interpretation of its results.}, language = {en} } @article{KlenkPieper2013, author = {Klenk, Tanja and Pieper, Jonas}, title = {Accountability in a privatized welfare state the case of the german hospital market}, series = {Administration \& society}, volume = {45}, journal = {Administration \& society}, number = {3}, publisher = {Sage Publ.}, address = {Thousand Oaks}, issn = {0095-3997}, doi = {10.1177/0095399712451890}, pages = {326 -- 356}, year = {2013}, abstract = {One of the most striking features of recent public sector reform in Europe is privatization. This development raises questions of accountability: By whom and for what are managers of private for-profit organizations delivering public goods held accountable? Analyzing accountability mechanisms through the lens of an institutional organizational approach and on the empirical basis of hospital privatization in Germany, the article contributes to the empirical and theoretical understanding of public accountability of private actors. The analysis suggests that accountability is not declining but rather multiplying. The shifts in the locus and content of accountability cause organizational stress for private hospitals.}, language = {en} } @article{JantzJann2013, author = {Jantz, Bastian and Jann, Werner}, title = {Mapping accountability changes in labour market administrations from concentrated to shared accountability?}, series = {International review of administrative sciences : an international journal of comparative public administration}, volume = {79}, journal = {International review of administrative sciences : an international journal of comparative public administration}, number = {2}, publisher = {Sage Publ.}, address = {London}, issn = {0020-8523}, doi = {10.1177/0020852313477764}, pages = {227 -- 248}, year = {2013}, abstract = {The article explores how recent changes in the governance of employment services in three European countries (Denmark, Germany and Norway) have influenced accountability relationships. The overall assumption in the growing literature about accountability is that the number of actors involved in accountability arrangements is rising, that accountability relationships are becoming more numerous and complex, and that these changes may lead to contradictory accountability relationships, and finally to multi accountability disorder'. The article tries to explore these assumptions by analysing the different actors involved and the information requested in the new governance arrangements in all three countries. It concludes that the considerable changes in organizational arrangements and more managerial information demanded and provided have led to more shared forms of accountability. Nevertheless, a clear development towards less political or administrative accountability could not be observed.}, language = {en} }