000 01536pab a2200181 454500
008 180718b2014 xxu||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
100 _aJarvis, Mark D.
245 _aThe black box of bureaucracy: Interrogating accountability in the public service
260 _c2014
300 _ap.450-466.
362 _aDec
520 _aBolstering accountability among civil servants has been at the centre of public governance reform efforts for well beyond the past decade. A critical gap has been the lack of empirical understanding of the actual accountability practices, especially below the deputy minister level. This article presents initial findings from a larger research study comparing Canada, Australia and the Netherlands aimed at addressing this gap. The study seeks to understand both how, and for what, individual executive, managerial and working-level public servants are held to account. The research tests an adapted version of Aucoin and Heintzman's and Bovens, Schillemans and 't Hart's respective frameworks on the purposes of accountability. The results suggest that while there is evidence that all four normative purposes of accountability examined ヨ democratic control, assurance, learning and results ヨ are reflected in the actual practice of accountability, practice is wanting in some respect with regard to each of the four. - Reprodu
650 _aPublic administration
650 _aAccountability
650 _aBureaucracy
773 _aAustralian Journal of Public Administration
909 _a107378
999 _c107373
_d107373