Accountability and Transparency

 

Accountability and Transparency: Essential Principles

"A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own Governors must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives."
"...[T]he concentration of power and the subjection of individuals will increase amongst democratic nations... in the same proportion as their ignorance."


If citizens are to govern their own affairs, either directly or through representative government, they must be informed about how best to determine their affairs and how best to represent and execute
them.




In a democracy, the principle of accountability holds that government officials—whether elected or appointed by those who have been elected—are responsible to the citizenry for their decisions and actions. Transparency requires that the decisions and actions of those in government are open to public scrutiny and that the public has a right to access such information. Both concepts are central to the very idea of democratic governance. Without accountability and transparency, democracy is impossible. In their absence, elections and the notion of the will of the people have no meaning, and government has the potential to become arbitrary and self-serving.


The People's Right to Know
Elections are the primary means for citizens to hold their country's officials accountable for their actions in office, especially when they have behaved illegally, corruptly, or ineptly while carrying out the work of the government. But for elections—and the people's will—to be meaningful, basic rights must be protected and affirmed, such as with a Bill of Rights, as in the United States. James Madison, the author of the U.S. Bill of Rights, believed that the very basis for government's responsiveness was the assurance that citizens would have sufficient knowledge to direct it. If citizens are to govern their own affairs, either directly or through representative government, they must be informed about how best to determine their affairs and how best to represent and execute them. If citizens are not well informed, they can neither act in their own self-interest, broadly speaking, nor have any serious choice in elections, much less offer themselves as candidates.


A free press is the essential guarantor of the public's access to information. The press must, therefore, have broad protection against infringements of its rights, and must be able to search out information when the public interest is concerned. Of course, the people themselves must also have the right to know about government proceedings and the right to gain access to government information. Interestingly, though, such rights have been entrenched in the laws of most democracies only during the last 50 years. When U.S. president Lyndon Johnson signed the precedent-setting Freedom of Information Act in 1966, he stated:

"[T]his legislation springs from one of our most essential principles: a democracy works best when the people have all the information that the security of the nation permits. No one should be able to pull the curtains of secrecy around decisions which can be revealed without injury to the public interest."

Absent these instruments for accountability and transparency, government is likely to succumb to corruption; this has occurred throughout history when no controls have been placed on governmental powers and leaders have sought only to retain power.


Separation of Powers
Accountability also involves the separation of powers, which is the principle that no branch of government may dominate another, and that each branch has the power to check fundamental abuses by other branches. Congress's authority granted by the U.S. Constitution, for example, gives it the power to hold other branches accountable for breaches of the public's trust through impeachment and expulsion. U.S. federal courts, especially the Supreme Court, have the authority to judge the constitutionality of congressional laws and officials' actions. Parliamentary systems do not have the separation of powers in the same way, since the executive branch is appointed by the legislature. In such systems, standards of accountability are established through tradition, laws, and oversight by an independent judiciary, public commissions, and a free press.
The U.S. system of government provides for an additional separation of powers with the guarantee that states should have the responsibility to govern unless otherwise specified as part of the national government's powers. A similar principle is subsidiarity, found in the laws of the European Union (EU) and in the doctrine of the Catholic Church. This is the notion that decisions should be made at the lowest level of government possible so that citizens are close to the decision-making structures, thereby allowing for greater accountability.
The Advantages of Democracy over Dictatorship
Governments that are truly accountable can more effectively prevent corruption, which involves the use of positions of power or privilege for personal enrichment. Indeed, corruption is possible in all systems of government, and democracies are not immune from it. Still, democracies have several advantages in dealing with corruption. One advantage is that elected representatives in a democracy have a direct relationship with the country's citizens, whose votes encourage the winner to act honestly in representing the people's will. Indeed, the various laws, constitutional provisions, and internal regulations found in democracies reflect the idea that those who work for the government, whether appointed, elected, or hired, owe a high level of accountability to the public.
By contrast, dictatorships have no such protections or safeguards. Leaders in a dictatorship do not have the same incentives as leaders in a democracy to avoid violating the law and abusing power to their own advantage. The 2007 Corruption Perceptions Index compiled by Transparency International (TI), a global organization committed to fighting corruption, demonstrates how corruption can correlate with dictatorship. Among the 30 countries ranked least corrupt by TI (out of a total of 180), 28 are categorized as "free," 2 are "partly free," and 0 are "not free" in Freedom House's Freedom in the World 2007 survey. Among the bottom 30, 11 are listed as "partly free" and 19 as "not free" by Freedom House.
Representative Organizations in Civil Society
Other institutions, including the private groups and organizations that operate under public laws, also need standards of accountability and transparency. Trade unions, corporations, humanitarian organizations, schools, hospitals, political parties, and other voluntary organizations all must operate under laws and regulations designed to ensure that the interests of their members and the general public are properly served, and that these institutions do not violate the public's trust. In dictatorships, such organizations are often state instruments that exist to steal money or create wealth for the ruler's closest associates.






Citizen Oversight in Athenian Democracy
One of the most notable achievements of Athenian democracy in ancient times was its establishment of civilian oversight of public funds and the wealth and incomes of all public figures (including generals), so that they did not benefit from their public positions. Auditors, financial controllers of the treasury, and judges were chosen annually by lot. This system of accountability stood in stark contrast with nearly all other governments in the ancient world, most of which were despotic and marked by corruption, personal enrichment, and aggrandizement.
Two Precedents of Accountability
In England, the Magna Carta, which was signed in 1215, introduced the first standards of accountability in government by forcing King John to accept the basic principle that taxes should not be raised without first consulting his wealthy subjects. Representative councils had to be called to review the monarchy's expenditures. From this grew a form of constitutional monarchy in which parliament asserted increasingly greater powers. Three centuries after the Magna Carta, in 1517, another precedent was set when Martin Luther posted the Ninety-five Theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany. The theses challenged the selling of indulgences (absolution from sin) by the Church, a practice widely used for priestly and papal enrichment. In challenging both the spiritual and the temporal authority of the pope, Luther was asserting the right of believers to accountability. In doing so, he sparked the Protestant Reformation, marking a division within Christianity between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
Embedded in the Constitution
With the rise of representative government, accountability and transparency became much broader in scope, encompassing not just what leaders owed abstractly to the nation or the commonwealth, but what they owed specifically to the citizenry. As an expression of the people's will, government is accountable to all of the country's citizens. In the United States, concepts of accountability and transparency are embedded in the Constitution, its provisions often directly responding to prior abuses of the British crown, such as arbitrary arrests and property confiscations. The U.S. Constitution requires the legislative and executive branches to publish laws, regulations, and proceedings. It also requires the president to report periodically to Congress on the state of the union and to fully account for the national government's expenditures. In this way, the public is made aware of the government's actions.
The Powers of Congress
In the United States, in addition to the voters' power through elections, Congress has the power to impeach and convict the president and other federal officials, such as judges, in cases of "treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors." But in matters of corruption, until the late 1800s, there were few controls over U.S. government officials beyond ineffective antibribery statutes. In this early period, government operated according to the spoils system, in which the winner doled out jobs according to party and candidate loyalty, not by merit. The first comprehensive civil service law, the Pendleton Act, was passed only in 1883 following President James Garfield's assassination by a disgruntled office seeker. The Pendleton Act established minimum standards for federal employment, competence and qualification examinations for employment, a merit-based promotional system, and job and pay classifications within the civil service. The act still forms the basis for civil service standards today.
Laws designed to ensure public access to information include the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), passed in 1966, and the Ethics in Government Act, passed in 1978. The Ethics Act was passed in the wake of the Watergate scandal, the most significant constitutional crisis in U.S. history. It involved illegal activities ordered by President Richard Nixon, who sought to weaken his political opponents and secure reelection and then attempted to cover up the crimes. The crisis also involved the president's protracted challenges to the authority of Congress and the judiciary. In the end, Congress, the media, the public, and even the Supreme Court joined to expose the scope of the president's transgressions, forcing him to resign from office.
The Role of the Media
The role of the media in the Watergate scandal is well-known. It reflects the importance of the media in exposing wrongdoing and keeping the public informed of the actions of government and elected officials. Until 1964, however, the media's powers were very fragile. Two U.S. Supreme Court decisions have been essential in strengthening the media's position. New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) and The Pentagon Papers Case (1971), also involving the New York Times, strengthened the media's rights to obtain information from government, publish material about officials (even if not fully accurate), and print materials the government has kept secret from the public. Nevertheless, journalists often find themselves in conflict with government and legal authorities over protecting sources of classified or sensitive information, especially if the sources are government employees who have committed themselves to secrecy. In such cases, journalists are subject to imprisonment. Recently, a New York Times reporter went to jail for 85 days for not revealing a source to whom she had promised secrecy. In response, several news organizations renewed their efforts to adopt a national shield law that would protect journalists from having to reveal their sources in criminal or federal cases (several states have such shield laws).

It is clear, however, that corruption and the lack of accountability have been important factors in world events.

It is clear, however, that corruption and the lack of accountability have been important factors in world events.

It is clear, however, that corruption and the lack of accountability have been important factors in world events.

  "It is clear, however, that corruption and the lack of accountability have been important factors in world events. "

Beyond the U.S.
Today, most democracies (presidential, parliamentary, or mixed) have established principles of accountability.


Western European countries, most of which have parliamentary systems, began to adopt domestic legislation for accountability and transparency in the 1950s. Accountability and transparency are basic qualifications for membership in both the Council of Europe and the EU. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has adopted standards and proposes model legislation to govern institutions, such as corporations, nonprofit organizations, and trade unions. The United Kingdom has also enacted comprehensive freedom of information legislation for the public sector.


Elsewhere in the world, the achievement of accountability and transparency in government has been mixed. Whereas many democratic countries have moved decisively to end corruption and introduce concepts of accountability, many other countries remain mired in dictatorship and crime. It is clear, however, that corruption and the lack of accountability have been important factors in world events. "People power" was the term used to describe the hundreds of thousands of people who demonstrated in the Philippines in 1986, forcing the corrupt government of Ferdinand Marcos to resign (see County Study of the Philippines below). Recently, corruption was a significant issue in the formation of popular movements against nondemocratic governments in Serbia (2000), Georgia (2003), and Ukraine (2004). In many countries, the public's disgust at pervasive corruption has been a force for democratization. With the establishment of new democratic institutions, there is a potential to institute more open and effective procedures to deal with corruption, government secrecy, and electoral abuses.