Agents of Accountability: Monitors and Claimants in Accountability Processes

Session Submission Type: Virtual Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Recent years have witnessed a boom in research on processes of social and electoral accountability, through which information on political or bureaucratic performance and corruption may shape citizen action through political voice or voting behavior. However, less research in this tradition has focused specifically on the monitors and claimants themselves who generate the information that can trigger such accountability processes. These can include ordinary citizens, journalists, civil society groups, and bureaucratic monitoring agencies. What motivations, capacities, and institutional contexts shape how these agents of accountability can contribute to making government more responsive?

The papers on this panel seek to investigate these questions across contexts and countries. Cutting across world regions—South Asia, Latin America, and Africa—these papers explore various accountability-generating processes at the micro-level, including requesting government information, mobilizing citizen journalists, monitoring local politicians, and overseeing public procurement. Jennifer Bussell (UC Berkeley) and Ana de la O (Yale) will lend their expertise as discussants and Miriam Golden (EUI) will chair.

Sub Unit

• Division 12: Comparative Politics of Developing Countries

Chair

• Jennifer L. Bussell University of California, Berkeley

Discussants

• Jennifer L. Bussell University of California, Berkeley

• Ana Lorena De La O Torres Yale University

Individual Presentations

• Citizen Journalism, Social Brokers, and Accountability Challenges in Rural India - Gabrielle Kruks-Wisner, University of Virginia

• Accountability in Time: Evolution in Access to Information Institutions - Brian Palmer-Rubin, Marquette University; Dan Berliner, London School of Economics; Benjamin E. Bagozzi, University of Delaware; Aaron S. Erlich, McGill University

• When Will Civil Society Monitor the State? Evidence from Mali - Jaimie Bleck, University of Notre Dame; Jessica Gottlieb, University of Houston; Katrina Kosec, IFPRI

• Pro-social Incentives and Medicine Theft During COVID: Evidence from Malawi - Ryan Steele Jablonski, London School of Economics and Political Science; Brigitte Seim, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Mariana Carvalho, University of California, San Diego; Clark C. Gibson, University of California, San Diego