ABSTRACT
Krislov and Rosenbloom (1987, 529) discuss the challenge “of effectively integrating bureaucratic power into democratic government” when bureaucracies are characterized by “hierarchy, specialization, and formalization.” Essential to that “effective integration” is accountability, “the measures by which public agencies and their workers manage the diverse expectations generated within and outside the organization” (Romzek and Dubnick 1987, 228). To manage those expectations, Romzek and Dubnick (1987) suggest the presence of four types of accountability systems: bureaucratic (hierarchical), legal, professional, and political. Measuring accountability in these different systems can take the form of what Roberts (2002, 659) calls direction-based accountability (goals and objectives), performance-based accountability (outputs and outcomes), or procedure-based accountability (managerial reporting). Along these lines, scholars have typically focused on budgets and finance (Willoughby 1987; Wang 2002) and how responsive administrators are to elected officials (Wood & Waterman 1991; West 2004) while this study focuses on “political accountability.”
