Biela, Jan creator Papadopoulos, Yannis text xu| 2014 continuing ng p.362-381. Regulation has in many cases been delegated to independent agencies, which has led to the question of how democratic accountability of these agencies in ensured. There are few empirical approaches to agency accountability. We offer such an approach, resting upon three propositions. First, we scrutinize agency accountability both de jure (accountability is ensured by formal rights of accountability 'fora' to receive information and impose consequences) and de facto (the capability of fora to use these rights depends on resources and decision costs that affect the credibility of their sanctioning capacity). Second, accountability must be evaluated separately at political, operational and managerial levels. And third, at each level accountability is enacted by a system of several (partially) interdependent for a, forming together an accountability regime. The proposed framework is applied to the case of the German Bundesnetzogentur's accountability regime, which shows its suitability for empirical purposes. - Reproduced. Accountability International Review of Administrative Sciences 180718