Introduction

This book studies the role of accounting in informing and shaping the democratic accountability of actions for key agents in politics. It focuses on the new devolved executives and national assemblies and parliament in the UK (Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales), but also makes comparisons with more established political settings (in Westminster, New Zealand, Norway and the United States). We explore how accounting is affected by a modernising public management culture and the New Public Management (NPM) movement and how accounting relates to non-accounting forms of accountability.