Format:
1 online resource (541 pages)
ISBN:
9780821385562
Content:
Accountability has become a buzzword in international development. Development actors appear to delight in announcing their intention to ?promote accountability??but it is often unclear what accountability is and how it can be promoted. This book addresses some questions that are crucial to understanding accountability and for understanding why accountability is important to improve the effectiveness of development aid. We ask: What does it mean to make governments accountable to their citizens? How do you do that? How do you create genuine demand for accountability among citizens, how do you move citizens from inertia to public action?The main argument of this book is that accountability is a matter of public opinion. Governments will only be accountable if there are incentives for them to do so?and only an active and critical public will change the incentives of government officials to make them responsive to citizens? demands. Accountability without public opinion is a technocratic, but not an effective solution.In this book, more than 30 accountability practitioners and thinkers discuss the concept and its structural conditions; the relationship between accountability, information, and the media; the role of deliberation to promote accountability; and mechanisms and tools to mobilize public opinion. A number of case studies from around the world illustrate the main argument of the book: Public opinion matters and an active and critical public is the surest means to achieve accountability that will benefit the citizens in developing countries. This book is designed for policy-makers and governance specialists working within the international development community, national governments, grassroots organizations, activists, and scholars engaged in understanding the interaction between accountability and public opinion and their role for
Content:
Intro -- Half Title Page -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Contents -- Contributors -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Section I Foundations -- 1 Taking Direct Accountability Seriously -- 2 The (Im)Possibility of Mobilizing Public Opinion? -- 3 The Public and Its (Alleged) Handiwork -- Section II Structural Context -- 4 Gaining State Support for Social Accountability -- 5 The Workings of Accountability: Contexts and Conditions -- 6 Associations without Democracy: The West Bank in Comparative Perspective -- Section III Information and Accountability -- 7 Necessary Conditions for Increasing Accountability -- 8 Information Processing, Public Opinion, and Accountability -- 9 Information, Social Networks, and the Demand for Public Goods: Experimental Evidence from Benin -- Section IV Building Capacity through Media Institutions (Media and Journalism) -- 10 Training Journalists for Accountability in Argentina -- 11 Well-Informed Journalists Make Well-Informed Citizens Coverage of Governance Issues in the Democratic Republic of Congo -- 12 Communication Technologies for Accountability -- Section V Deliberation and Accountability -- 13 Minipublics: Designing Institutions for Effective Deliberation and Accountability -- 14 Deliberation and Institutional Mechanisms for Shaping Public Opinion -- 15 Creating Citizens through Communication Education in the United States -- 16 Participatory Constitution Making in Uganda -- Section VI Power and Public Opinion (Mobilizing Public Opinion) -- 17 Collective Movements, Activated Opinion, and the Politics of the Extraordinary -- 18 Public Narrative, Collective Action, and Power -- 19 "Social Accountability" as Public Work -- 20 Holding Government Accountable through Informal Institutions: Solidary Groups and Public Goods Provision in Rural China.
Note:
Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources
Additional Edition:
ISBN 9780821385050
Additional Edition:
Erscheint auch als Druck-Ausgabe ISBN 9780821385050
Language:
English
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