Direct Bureaucratic Accountability: Police Response to High-Profile Shootings

• In Event: Poster Session: Public Administration & Law and Courts
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: New Research on Public Performance and Management

Abstract

Research on bureaucratic accountability has tended to focus on formal means of control: the replacement of an executive, the manipulation of budgets, or changing authorizations. Less well studied is the impact of public and media pressure on bureaucratic behavior. Using popular protests—such as Black Lives Matter-- and media attention following high profile police shootings in the last several years I show that immediate changes in local aggregate police behavior follow, even when no evidence of formal political intervention is found. Using this case, I argue political control of the bureaucracy and bureaucratic accountability to the political system does not necessarily require formal political action, and responsiveness also exists to public political pressures.

Author

• Michael John McCamman, University of Arizona