Accountable Government through Collaborative Governance?

Governance researchers have repeatedly discussed how to make public governance more accountable given the relatively 'thin' accountability of representative government. Recent decades have seen the growth of new, compensatory forms of accountability. However, these measures do not seem have satisfied the demands for strengthening public sector accountability. Drawing on the concept of social accountability, this article challenges common wisdom in arguing that collaborative governance may enhance public governance accountability, although it also raises new accountability problems that must be tackled. The article develops a heuristic framework for empirical studies of accountability, which improves the impact of collaborative forms of governance

The ideational robustness of bureaucracy

To better understand why bureaucracy is still going strong despite a century of scorn, this article asks: How has the bureaucratic governance paradigm managed to achieve its ideational robustness in the face of consecutive waves of criticism and societal challenges? This question is answered by studying the combination of a broad range of ideational robustness strategies that have enabled bureaucracy to weather the storm and stay relevant and praiseworthy in the eyes of public governors. The article describes the core components of the bureaucratic governance paradigm and reviews four consecutive waves of criticism before explaining the ideational changes that have enabled the relative stability of public bureaucracy based on the adaptation and innovation of its content and scope. In addition to summarizing key debates about public bureaucracy, the article develops six ideational robustness strategies that may be used to study other core ideas in public governance