ABSTRACT
This chapter elaborates on the monograph’s purpose and introduces its central issues. The editors of the volume believe that the term ‘accountability’ may be interpreted very broadly. This notion includes various procedures for assessing individual behaviours of incumbents of state organs in the performance of their duties (comprising punitive ailments and rewards that they may befall), mechanisms involving reporting on this performance (reporting), and instruments that refer to material (organisational) substrates of a state organ or the whole branch of government. The relationship between accountability and transparency is elucidated, and the ideas included in the contributions are presented. The editors express their hope that the chapters included in this volume answer questions concerning the efficiency of accountability and transparency mechanisms and procedures from the perspective of consolidated democratic systems as well as various tendencies of democratic decay and infringement on the rule of law.
