Skip to main content

Search from vocabulary

Content language

Concept information

Preferred term

accountability (governance)  

Definition

  • Accountability can be defined in the following manner: When people are meant to pursue the will and/or interests of others, they should give an account of their actions to those others so that those others are then able to decide whether to reward or to censure them for the actions. Accountability thus suggests that an agent (such as an elected politician or a civil servant) is responsible for acting on behalf of a principal (such as, respectively, a citizen or minister) to whom he or she should respond and report. [Source: Encyclopedia of Political Theory; Accountability]

Belongs to group

URI

https://concepts.sagepub.com/social-science/concept/accountability_(governance)

Download this concept: