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This paper develops and applies the concept of accountability styles for analyzing and comparing accountability practices in different countries. This is relevant as there is considerable scholarship on public sector accountability but only very few comparative studies. Extant studies have shown that national styles of accountability are both marked by convergence as well as the resilience of national differences. The concept of accountability style is adopted to describe and interpret how and why accountability practices differ between administrative systems. It does so by analyzing practices of accountability of public sector agencies in four European democracies with different state traditions: the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and the UK. These countries vary with regards to state strength (interventionist propensity) and administrative concentration (high or low centralization). The analysis focuses on the accountability of arms' length agencies which lends itself for comparisons across counties. The paper shows that the national political-administrative context crucially shapes practices of accountability and accountability regimes of agencies. The Norwegian accountability style is characterized as 'centralized and convenient'. The UK-style is equally centralized yet not so convenient as it incurs high accountability-process costs on agencies. Switzerland is marked by limited hierarchical accountability. And the Dutch accountability style is comparatively 'broad and informal'. State strength and administrative concentration explain some of the variance while historical legacies explain additional national variations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accountability-era reforms have promulgated a discourse of crisis and a looming threat for public schools. While these threats negatively affect all, this paper focuses on how schools' responses to these threats shape novice Teach for America Corp Members' (CM) socialization. By analyzing nearly 6,000 daily reflections from 38 CMs about their experiences during a high-stakes cheating scandal, we argue that schools' responses indicated a threat rigidity response that allowed what we call the mesosystem of transgressions to occur. Our implications present ways to (a) mitigate threats inflicted on schools through unjust policies and practices and (b) enact equitable public schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In South Africa, the scholarship of epistemic justice has taken on an historical gaze with higher education framed as a social institution that might ameliorate the historical traumas of colonialism. Undoing the legacies of colonialism has been framed as the democratisation of the knowledge project. Using the White Paper 3 of 1997 that posits academic freedom, institutional autonomy and public accountability as fundamental to institutional governance, in part I of this analysis I broadened public accountability to include the social, political and economic factors that inhibit or act as catalyst to the attainment of educational desire. In this second part publication, I am interested in developing and proposing epistemic impartiality. This concept is developed from Mitova's proposition of 'decolonising knowledge without too much relativism', which ultimately fosters epistemic justice through rigorously scrutinising each epistemic tradition. My suggestion is that epistemic impartiality enables dialogue between divergent traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2008, Sean Rigg, a 40-year-old Black British man died in England and Wales police custody. It was not until 4 years later at the inquest that it transpired one of the police officers involved, the custody sergeant, PS Paul White gave false information. White had claimed he saw Rigg in the van upon his arrival however CCTV footage demonstrated this did not happen. Following a deconstructive approach this paper examined the inquest transcripts to explore how belief and the possibility of being mistaken was integral to the account White provided. It is the ambiguity of truth/fiction that is significant in legal investigations for it comes to produce the justifications for the deaths of Black people in England and Wales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, policymakers have begun to problematize how legislation stands in the way of the digitalization of the public sector. We are witnessing the emergence of a new phenomenon, digital-ready legislation, which implies that, whenever possible, new legislation should build on simple rules and unambiguous terminology to reduce the need for professional (human) discretion and allow for the extended use of automated case processing in public-sector organizations. Digital-ready legislation has potentially wide-ranging consequences because it creates the conditions for how public organizations are digitalized. The processes, practices, choices, and responsibilities for drafting digital-ready legislation, however, are not well-described or debated. Digital-ready legislation is a dormant issue. This paper develops the notion of the "double darkness" of digitalization to account for this. Based on a qualitative study, the paper investigates how digital-ready legislation as a sociotechnical arrangement is shaped by policy tools and by a complex, collaborative process where responsibility for legislation is fragmented. It argues that although the policy tools are aimed at making actors responsible for digitalization and creating clarity about the process, actors seem to be reluctant to take on the responsibility for making political decisions related to digitalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the nonparametric Mann–Whitney U-Test to analyze 128 survey responses from K-12 teachers, this paper considers how value-added measures (VAM) impact educators' decisions to include Latinx topics in their social studies lessons. The authors found that VAM teachers are more likely to rely on district/state curriculum standards whereas non-VAM teachers rely on curriculum resources to incorporate Latinx topics. When compared to non-VAM teachers, VAM teachers cover less Latinx content when it does not align with the standards, but higher coverage when the topics do align. The findings suggest that VAM can restrict teachers from implementing a diverse curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon earlier studies of reforms and institutional changes in higher education, the purpose of this paper is to trace how the understanding of accountability has changed over the past twenty years and how it is understood to have impacted on higher education institutions. We do so by reviewing more than 350 papers and by asking three questions: Who answers to whom? For what are they answering? And how to assess those accountability arrangements? With these three questions as guides, our results indicate that higher education institutions have been undergoing processes of what we term accountabilization. These results contribute to the scholarship on higher education governance by conceptualizing the processes of accountabilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Subnational actors and organizations are crucial mediators of policy implementation due to their proximity to schools. However, in low- and middle-income country contexts, little is known about their management practices and factors that shape the adoption of these practices to improve education delivery. Purpose: We explore the management context of five District Education Directorates in Ghana, and the factors that enable or constrain them to plan and implement policy. Participants: Forty-three interviews and focus groups with regional and district education officials, district political actors, and basic education school headteachers and teachers. Research Design: A qualitative study of semistructured interviews, focus groups, and education policy and planning documents. Analysis: To understand how policy implementation happens within complex, multitiered bureaucracies, our theoretical framework uses four management functions described in Williams et al. (2021) to explore two different paradigms of how to change public bureaucracies: target setting and prioritization; measurement and monitoring; accountability and incentives; and problem-solving. We coded and analyzed our data based on this framework and developed district-wide narrative memos to synthesize the findings. Findings: We identify three areas of (mis)alignment in management practices: across bureaucratic levels and among actors; around clear and consistent priorities for learning; in expected actions and availability of resources. These (mis)alignments can constrain or be leveraged by districts to improve education delivery in Ghana. Implications: We argue for better prioritization of goals toward learning and the efficient allocation of funds for management practices typical of effective organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the context of a Kindergarten team in a suburban P-3 school in Wisconsin developing literacy coaching support. Facing recent neoliberal accountability reforms that have greatly expanded teacher competition, dismantled teachers' unions, and added the role of the coach to the school, "confidence" is an issue that the coach and teachers struggle with as they seek to improve minority student achievement. Using a case study design and feminist sociological framework highlighting emotional labour, the affective economy, and the psychosocial possibilities of the work of Pierre Bourdieu , this research examines professional capital as a form of educators' experience. Ultimately, we see that the landscape of power and emotions is complex as it divides "good" and "bad" White and middle-class teachers. Possibilities for extending the uses of feminist sociological theory in early childhood literacy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we ask whether princi ple s —relevant institutions, including administrative reform, legal and judicial support, and information and communication technology (ICT)—and princi pal s —ordinary people that are capable, knowledgeable, and willing—can help enhance accountability of street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) by mitigating unwarranted discretionary behaviors. We examined the New York City Police Department by constructing and analyzing a unique dataset drawn from multiple sources and by using the SLB literature to inform our empirical model specification. Fixed effects regression analysis revealed the potential of princi ple s and princi pal s in motivating or reducing police officers' use of force resulting in substantiated civilian complaints. Specifically, proactive policing strategies, exonerated civilian complaint dispositions, court summons following arrests, and ICT are the princi ple s, and a low-poverty population served by police are the princi pal s we found to influence discretionary police behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the evolution of accountability in autocracies and the consequent progressive economic and political mismanagement in terms of information changes. It is often held to be true that better information means greater accountability. On the contrary, we show that in dictatorships, better information might imply worse choices by a dictator. The basic idea is that the reputation mechanism underlying accountability only works if there is enough noise surrounding the dictator's possible type. As the selectorate's information about the dictator's actual type increases over time, the incentives for the dictator to behave correctly vanish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the practice of holding prime ministers to account in four case studies: Australia, Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. Using text analysis, as well as research on prime ministerial responsibilities, it investigates oral questions asked in parliamentary procedures where prime ministers are questioned together with ministers (Question Period in Canada and Question Time in Australia) versus procedures where they are questioned individually (PMQs in the United Kingdom and Oral Questions to the Taoiseach in Ireland), and explores the degree to which they are questioned for matters that are within their remit. It argues that the practice of prime ministerial accountability is decisively shaped by procedural features such as whether written notice is required for questions, as well as by the broader role of the questioning mechanism in the political system, and less by the collective or individualised nature of questioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To describe a recent process by which mental health service sector leaders identified key elements of strategic, systemic and structural mental health reform. These elements could guide an incoming Federal government. Method: The paper describes the process undertaken by the Sydney Mental Health Policy Forum between 2019 and 2022. This work generated principles, key domains and finally a set of actions. Results: Five immediate actions were identified that are cost neutral or require minimal investment. Five further actions requiring realignment of existing funds and/or new funds were also identified. Conclusions: The task of mental health reform in Australia is both large and overdue. Continued investment in fragmented or piecemeal programmes and services will not propel desired change. Reform must facilitate new regional control of planning, funding and responding to community mental health needs. The actions identified by the Forum set out a menu of opportunities to guide reform over the life of the next Parliament, starting now. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The public narrative surrounding efforts to improve low-performing K-12 schools in the United States has been notably gloomy. But what is known empirically about whether school improvement works, which policies are most effective, which contexts respond best to intervention, and how long it takes? We meta-analyze 141 estimates from 67 studies of post-No Child Left Behind Act turnaround policies. On average, policies had moderate positive effects on math and no effect on English Language Arts achievement on high-stakes exams. We find positive impacts on low-stakes exams and no evidence of harm on nontest outcomes. Extended learning time and teacher replacements predict greater effects. Contexts serving majority-Latina/o populations saw the largest improvements. We cannot rule out publication bias entirely but find no differences between peer-reviewed versus nonpeerreviewed estimates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) framework was established as a comprehensive, equitable approach for addressing urban students’ academic, behavioral, and social-emotional needs. Still, confusion surrounded its implementation. On returning to in-person instruction, urban educators have been challenged to resurrect their school’s MTSS framework while simultaneously confronting many other issues, such as increased student absenteeism, academic achievement deficits, and staffing shortages. Consequently, revisiting this matter is warranted, particularly concerning operating MTSS frameworks in high-poverty urban schools. Accordingly, this paper explains the design and operation of an MTSS and then discusses its historical evolution and current relevance. Next, the article identifies drivers of well-functioning MTSS frameworks while discussing the circumstances surrounding high-poverty urban schools. The paper concludes with a discussion of a core component of an MTSS framework that urban educators have identified as one for which they need more information: intensifying instruction. Properly addressing this component will equip urban educators with the foundational knowledge they need to design and implement an MTSS framework tailored to their unique circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do voters punish incumbent legislators for raising service costs? Concern about electoral punishment is considered a leading obstacle to increasing taxes and fees to fund service provision, but empirical evidence of such backlash is surprisingly sparse. This paper examines whether voters hold local elected officials accountable for raising water service costs. Using 10 years of panel data on municipal elections and water rates in North Carolina, we find rate increases do not reduce incumbent city council members' vote shares. Local politicians may overestimate their electoral risk from raising taxes and fees to fund public services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines different state approaches to educational accountability in response to the Every Student Succeeds Act. Cluster analysis reveals three groups of states with similar indicator weights and rating systems, and principal component analysis identifies two dimensions underlying these clusters. We find that state-level demographics are correlated with the types of assessment policies adopted by states: policy liberalism is associated with putting greater weight on school quality and student success, while economic variables are associated with traditional performance measures, such as graduation rates and testing. These clusters reveal different approaches to measuring accountability and prioritizing different kinds of information, which can in turn influence the nature of education politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teacher-focused accountability started to ramp up in the United States in 2007–2010 as the focus of accountability shifted from schools to individual teachers. Since that time, there has been a remarkable amount of change to the way that teachers are evaluated, and music teachers have been placed squarely under the microscope of accountability. In this article, I focus on high-stakes teacher evaluation (HSTE), a collection of reforms that are among the most hot-button issues of the past ten years. I argue that despite the intentions of these reforms, they were mostly "high stakes" only on paper. However, HSTE reforms have been far from inconsequential, with numerous negative effects on teachers. I first review the origins and logic of the HSTE reforms and discuss how music teachers were considered in such policy conversations. I then demonstrate how the reforms were mostly characterized by bluster and incomplete/subverted implementation, and I attempt to explain the reasons for the sputtering of HSTE. Finally, I discuss the negative consequences of HSTE and offer recommendations for music teachers as they navigate teacher evaluation in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reflects on the experience of preparing a 'From the Editors' (FTE) editorial for The Academy of Management Review that went through a process of editorial evaluation prior to its rejection. It provides a detailed example of an encounter between orthodox and heterodox forms of scholarship, illuminating their distinctive value-orientations and forms of engagement. Its specific focus is upon evaluative criteria applied, accountability of decision-making and the mobilization of scholarly aspirations and ethical principles in the preparation and assessment of the FTE. Its intent is to stimulate debate on what it means to 'challenge conventional wisdom' – an aim that is broadly shared by 'top' journals in the field of management and organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores perceptions of work intensification around the world. Underpinning this analysis is C. Wright Mills' (1959) argument that many personal troubles are public issues, and the notion that a significant dimension of the privatisation of public education, a concern of public education advocates worldwide, is the ways in which school work has become a private issue. One hundred and thirty interviews were conducted with education stakeholders across Australia, England, New Zealand and Canada exploring the issues of work intensification, school autonomy and accountability policies. The paper argues that the work done in public schools is increasingly becoming a private problem as a result of policy interventions. It suggests that we need to widen the scope of defining publicness in education beyond that of governance and funding to include consideration of how work is organised and experienced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nonprofits are increasingly engaged in efforts to develop collective self-regulation systems. These efforts stem in part from of growing pressure on nonprofits to demonstrate accountability and transparency. In spite of the growth in such initiatives, however, little research examines self-regulation in a systematic way across settings, resulting in minimal accumulation of knowledge on the factors underlying the emergence, structure and effectiveness of self-regulation. This minisymposium addresses this gap by taking a comparative perspective on self-regulation initiatives in three regions: sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Europe. The introduction sets the stage for the three papers by providing a common framework and typology for understanding self-regulatory initiatives and outlining the theoretical frameworks applied in the empirical papers. The three papers that follow examine the commonalities and differences in the forms that emerge across these three regions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An introduction to thi issue of "Criminal Justice Policy Review," in which the authors discuss the issues of American law enforcement, civilians and policy accountability and the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE) and the Seattle University/NACOLE symposium, is presented.

This paper examines the significance in cricket of the function of ‘keeping score’ and the way in which accounting mechanisms have developed to facilitate and accommodate substantive changes in the game’s format and business commitments. Analysis presented in this paper demonstrates that the growing commercialization of cricket has seen scoring functions shift from an emphasis on factual recording to results determination. Subsequently, there has been increasing focus on the role of broader corporate governance mechanisms, as questions over the financing of the game have served to threaten its ethical standing and longer-term sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how accountability might make otherwise obscure and inaccessible algorithms available for governance. The potential import and difficulty of accountability is made clear in the compelling narrative reproduced across recent popular and academic reports. Through this narrative we are told that algorithms trap us and control our lives, undermine our privacy, have power and an independent agential impact, at the same time as being inaccessible, reducing our opportunities for critical engagement. The paper suggests that STS sensibilities can provide a basis for scrutinizing the terms of the compelling narrative, disturbing the notion that algorithms have a single, essential characteristic and a predictable power or agency. In place of taking for granted the terms of the compelling narrative, ethnomethodological work on sense-making accounts is drawn together with more conventional approaches to accountability focused on openness and transparency. The paper uses empirical material from a study of the development of an “ethical,” “smart” algorithmic videosurveillance system. The paper introduces the “ethical” algorithmic surveillance system, the approach to accountability developed, and some of the challenges of attempting algorithmic accountability in action. The paper concludes with reflections on future questions of algorithms and accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses audit as an exemplar of an expert system. The paper explores the premise that systemic trust in audit has been damaged and requires repair, looking specifically at the role of the institutionalized mechanism of the public inquiry. This is examined empirically in relation to the interaction between the heads of the Big Four accounting firms in the UK and the House of Lords Economic Select Committee in the course of the recent parliamentary investigation into the UK audit market, prompted by the global financial crisis. In particular, the paper seeks to understand how there can be transfer of trust, following Sztompka (1999), between different levels and between agents in a system. In this case, the Big Four – as privileged market participants – require re-legitimation from agents that are part of the political and legal apparatus. We therefore argue that re-legitimation of the Big Four’s privileged market position is dependent on transfer of trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on evidence from five school principals regarding leadership practices that work in multiple deprived contexts. The South African educational landscape is complex, often described as a cocktail of first and third world institutions. Looking at the schooling system on a continuum, on the one end there are first class schools which can compare favourably with the best in developed countries. On the other extreme there are dysfunctional schools. However, along the scale there are few schools in multiple deprived areas which display high degrees of resilience and perform at levels comparable to first class schools in terms of Matriculation examination results. This paper draws from a study based on the proposition that leadership was the greatest factor to explain such performance. The study was then informed by a quest for knowledge regarding the nature of such leadership. Such knowledge is needed as the country fights to turn around the many dysfunctional schools there are. While there is a corpus of scholarship that ‘speaks’ to this matter internationally, there remains need for home-grown insights in that regard. Two theoretical lenses (servant leadership and the asset-based approach) were applied. The study employed a qualitative approach involving individual face-to-face semi-structured interviews with five purposively selected school principals each representing their school. Findings suggest that the schools in question adopted inside-out development approaches involving the philosophy that they were masters of their own destiny. Time, commitment, and accountability were some of their greatest assets, things that did not have to come from outside the schools. Internal success paved the way for stronger and more fruitful synergies with the ‘outside world’. We conclude that schools in areas of multiple-deprivation need leadership that moves them away from notions of victimhood and deficit thinking towards asset-based approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper provides a critical discussion of integrated thinking, accountability, and corporate governance through an explorative interview with global corporate governance expert and positive activist Mervyn King. In a period in which the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are encouraging organizations to be connected and accountable to society and the environment, Mervyn King's groundbreaking global corporate governance vision highlights how organizations may develop a "conscious leadership" to pursue the common good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the concept of citizen participation in the context of the new interface between the public and government as a result of advancements in ICT and interactive e-govemment. This interface has a direct bearing on accountability and the governance process. The paper makes the case for greater involvement of citizens in designing the collection, the analysis, the dissemination and in assuring the proper consumption of performance measurement data. The paper concludes that in the 2lst Century the 1960's slogan "maximum feasible participation" can be a way to enhance democracy through better accountability and trust in government which can result from meaningful citizen participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information is a crucial factor in accountability arrangements. In all phases of the accountability process, information has to be gathered, processed and communicated. To gain deeper theory-driven insight, this paper examines, from a multi-theoretical perspective, two phenomena that may impede the exchange of information in the accountability process: Reluctance to disclose information and (deliberate) information overload. The paper uses economic, psychological and sociological theories to analyze reluctance to disclose information and empirical studies that shed light on information overload. The paper concludes with specific propositions to guide future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organisations can have a significant impact (positive or negative) on society through their actions and decisions. Given this reality, it is important that they are held responsible and accountable for the consequences of their actions. This concept is often referred to as 'social responsibility'. However, 'social responsibility', as currently conceived in the literature, neglects a specific focus on health as a social goal. Additionally, there are no practical tools to capture this concept in a holistic way to facilitate implementation and monitoring of organisational improvement. This paper reports on the process of developing a more holistic conceptual framework and tool for assessing organisational social responsibility and accountability for health (OSRAH). We conducted a review of the published and grey literature and engaged in expert consultation and focus group discussions. The initial OSRAH framework and the self-assessment tool were finalised for implementation and used by 95 organisations at a national event in Iran in February 2017. The results of the assessment data collected at the event showed organisations scored lowest in the domain of community health and highest in the domain of employee health. The OSRAH framework and assessment tool represents a new understanding of health and its determinants in organisations outside the health sector. It integrates health within the existing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) culture of organisations. The process of creating the tool and implementing it at the national festival of OSRAH in Iran created momentum for intersectoral action. This experience can inspire researchers and practitioners in other countries, especially in developing countries, to develop their own local definition and practical assessment framework for responsibility and accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing number of countries are adopting accountability systems in education that rely on the external evaluation of students' learning outcomes through standardized assessments. The international dissemination of this form of accountability, often known as test-based accountability, does not imply that exactly the same policy is adopted everywhere. Accountability reforms, as any other globalizing policy model, are context-specific. The concrete form that accountability reforms adopt is contingent on a range of political, historical and institutional conditions, and to policy-making dynamics and logics that operate at multiple scales. This paper analyzes the trajectory of accountability reforms in two Spanish regions, Madrid and Catalonia, from a comparative and multi-scalar perspective. Based on document analysis of media and official sources, and exploratory interviews with key informants, the paper shows that, although these two regions have pioneered the adoption of test-based accountability reforms in the Spanish context, their accountability systems have evolved quite differently. While accountability reforms in Madrid have been oriented toward the promotion of school choice and competition, Catalonia has adopted an uneven lower-stakes accountability approach with multiple ramifications. In this paper, we explain how and why such diverging trends have been possible within the context of a common general regulatory framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses accountability arrangements in the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and other organizations that set standards for certification and eco-labelling. It focuses on two types of accountability that are likely to be achievable and important to non-state standards organizations: control and responsiveness. In setting a global standard based on a multi-stakeholder governance structure, FSC established a model for other certification schemes, specifically within the forestry and fisheries sectors. By creating the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), FSC-supporters exported the certification model to the fisheries sector. Industry-led forest certification schemes that were initiated to compete with FSC and offer an industry-dominated model have come to mimic procedural accountability arrangements initially established by their competitor. However, they have carefully filtered out the prescriptions that could reduce their influence in standard -setting processes. The paper argues that while certification schemes could enhance control of corporate environmental and social performance, some of the industry-dominated schemes adopt popular and fashionable accountability recipes to divert criticism of their activities instead of acting responsively to external constituents such as environmental and social groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demands for greater transparency form an increasingly prevalent feature of many areas of organizational activity. Through the rubric of transparency, demands are made for organizations to demonstrate recognition of their responsibility for environmental impact, how money is spent, the returns received on money invested and so on. This paper argues that transparency reviews, however, do not straightforwardly open up opportunities for observing the internal dynamics of an organization in order to render the organization accountable and its members aware of their responsibilities. Instead, transparency reviews encourage the adoption of new or re-formatted informational production processes that produce information intended to fit the auspices of the review. In this way, internal aspects of organizations are not ‘made available’ but instead are re-oriented toward the production of specific forms of informational output that will externalize (or make available) a particular version of the internal dynamics of the organization. By studying these production processes in detail we find a series of ad-hoc, uncertain and disconnected processes through which accountability criteria are met and transparency achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether corruption leads to the election of women and whether increased women's representation leads to lower levels of corruption are two questions with answers that remain uncertain and context-dependent. We explore the case of Mexico and theorize that three factors--gender stereotypes, demands for the inclusion of women, and expectations of accountability--condition the relationship between women's representation and corruption. We hypothesize that given the features of the Mexican system, revelations of corruption should lead to the election of women and women should not be less corrupt than men in office. Leveraging an original dataset of close to 20 years of municipal audits to mayors, we find supporting evidence. The occurrence of audits and recent revelations of corruption increase the likelihood of women being elected and municipalities led by women report no fewer irregularities as compared to those led by men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public organizations have little tolerance when it comes to risks and errors. At the same time, environmental, technological, and demographic changes call for new ways of doing things to improve public sector performance. Achieving this may involve trial and error. Therefore, there is a need to effectively combine risk management and error management practices. However, the concepts tend to be intermingled and confused, which hinders public managers from deliberately exercising one or the other managerial behavior, or productively combining them. The purpose of this article is to theoretically disentangle risk management from error management. We argue that risk management is a prospective leadership behavior, while error management is a retrospective one. In our theoretical framework, we describe both concepts according to their temporal, behavioral, and normative characteristics. Testable propositions are developed regarding the theorized differences between the two concepts and their associated behaviors, and we discuss ways in which the two concepts can be applied in order to advance future research and, ultimately, improve the way public organizations respond to risks and errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policing faces increased accountability measures, influencing officers to engage in "covering your ass" and over-documentation. In this qualitative study of police officers across three Canadian provinces, we unpack the "covering your ass" mentality by exploring the paperwork burden as an unintended consequence of movements toward greater policing accountability. We find that covering your ass leads officers to complete paperwork to protect themselves from personally being investigated. They use paperwork to ensure they overcome any legal vulnerabilities by justifying their actions and explaining their interpretations of other officers' actions. We present policy implications of these findings tied to police accountability, the impacts of covering your ass, and the resulting paperwork burden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three trends have characterized state policymaking for higher education in the 21st century: divestment, accountability, and race neutrality. These policy agendas are often justified as an attempt to optimize system efficiency and performance by making institutional actors (agents) responsive to the demands of state officials (principals). In this manuscript, we present quantitative evidence that these three policy initiatives have not achieved their stated purpose. We use contemporary social theory to explain why this is the case. Finally, we call for deeper re-engagement of states and their higher education systems in place of transactional and technocratic models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The legitimacy of public broadcasting has been under pressure for several decades. Attempts to repair and restore this legitimacy have led to an intensification of accountability instruments and measures. These instruments and measures tend to focus on consumption figures or cost-benefit analyses, requiring new ways of capturing public value. This article argues that, given the media's persistent role as an interpreter and multiplier of news via traditional distribution channels and diverse new platforms providing information and opinions, professional follow-up communication is a relevant source for the examination of broadcasters' contributions to public debate. The essay explores how the analysis of newspapers via computational methods can be used by public broadcasters to reflect on and demonstrate their role in public debates in contributing a diversity of topics and viewpoints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use event history analysis on an aggregate dataset from 1997 to 2018 to understand the state-level antecedents associated with the adoption of test-based grade retention policies. Findings indicate that the educational conditions of a state to be more predictive of retention policy adoption than the political, economic, and geographic measures. In particular, a greater share of Black students in a state, lower fourth grade NAEP reading proficiency rates, and larger student enrollments in the early grades were all associated with increased odds of grade retention policy adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article outlines the structures, systems, rules and experiences of reporting on the British monarchy in the UK news today. The functions underpinning royal news are usually abstracted in the public imaginary. Using in-depth interviews with Royal Correspondents, and a broader understanding of royal news production, it explores the formal and informal agreements which shape reporting on royalty. The article addresses how the systems of royal news production significantly obstruct the ability to scrutinze the monarchy. The data illustrates the various frustrations of Royal Correspondents in terms of access, getting responses from the monarchy's Communications teams, and the potential professional risk of 'getting it wrong'. This has significant implications for questions of media, culture and ideology in the UK media, and the power afforded to the British monarchy in regulating its own media coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does gender accountability vary? We theorize that reduced perceptions by others of one's gender, or reduced external assessments of gender accountability, create more space for the cultivation of nonbinary subjectivities. We use the shelter-in-place period of the COVID-19 pandemic as a natural experiment during which major social institutions such as work and school changed and thus shifted gender accountability. Through interviews with a racially diverse sample of 22 U.S. adults who came out as nonbinary or genderfluid during this time period, we examine their experiences and understandings of this change in gender accountability. Participants described relief from relentless gender assessments as well as space for self-reflection and gender experimentation. Less stringent external assessments at work and school, especially the reduction of constant in-person evaluations of gender expression, produced new gender subjectivities that resisted binary understandings of gender. This study explores the nuance, variability, and situational character of gender accountability. We argue that in-person full-body gender assessments are a powerful component of gender accountability and that relief from gender accountability at work and school may be particularly liberating. Plain Language Summary: During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people came out as nonbinary or genderfluid. We interviewed 22 U.S. adults who started to identify as nonbinary or genderfluid during the shelter-in-place period of the pandemic. There were social aspects of the pandemic, such as increased free time, time alone, and opportunity to experiment with one's gender, that impacted the people we interviewed. One of the things that stood out was that interviewees discussed how working and doing school from home allowed them to be less concerned about people assessing their gender all day long. Because they were not interacting with people like coworkers and other students, who would see their full-body gender expression in person, they felt a sense of relief and freedom that allowed them to explore nonbinary gender identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate whether corruption amplifies the political effects of economic crises. Using Spanish municipal-level data and a difference-in-difference strategy, we find that local unemployment shocks experienced during the Great Recession (2008–2015) increased political fragmentation. This effect was four times larger in municipalities exposed to malfeasance than in municipalities without a history of political corruption. We bolster this evidence by showing that, conditional on province and population strata fixed effects, there is no evidence of differential pre-trends. We also find that the interaction of unemployment and corruption harms the two traditional main parties and benefits especially the new party on the left (Podemos). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quality education is of major public and private interest and, understandably, considerable effort is paid to the quality of schools and improvement of the level of education in society. Many governments recognize the limitations of centralized policy in motivating school improvement and turn to ‘network governance’ to coordinate school systems. Relying on school-to-school collaboration to coordinate education systems has far-reaching consequences for existing accountability structures, most of which were developed to support hierarchical control of individual school quality. This paper reflects on the accountability of networks of schools and on appropriate arrangements to improve the effectiveness of partnerships; our contribution starts with unpicking the question of ‘who is accountable to whom and for what’ in a network of schools? We discuss some common problems in the accountability of networks and describe frameworks to evaluate network-level outcomes and functioning. Examples from the accountability of Multi-Academy Trusts in England are included to contextualize our contribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is “teaching to the test,” and can one detect evidence of this practice in state test scores? This paper unpacks this concept and empirically investigates one variant of it by analyzing test item–level data from three states’ mathematics and reading tests. We show that NCLB-era state tests predictably emphasized some state standards while consistently excluding others; a small number of standards typically accounted for a substantial fraction of test points. We find that students performed better on items testing frequently assessed standards—those that composed a larger fraction of the state test in prior years—which suggests that teachers targeted their instruction towards these predictably tested skills. We conclude by describing general principles that should guide high-stakes test construction if a policy goal is to ensure that test score gains accurately represent gains in student learning. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recent efforts to improve the quality and availability of scientific research in education, coupled with increased expectations for the use of research in practice, demand new ways of thinking about connections between research and practice. The conceptual framework presented in this paper argues that increasing research in educational decision-making cannot be simplified to an issue of dissemination or of motivating practitioners to access evidence-based research but rather is a bidirectional problem in which characteristics of both the research and practice communities must be understood and addressed in order to strengthen ties between research and practice in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When No Child Left Behind (NCLB) became law in 2002, it was viewed as an effort to create uniform standards for students and schools across the country. More than a decade later, we know surprisingly little about how states actually implemented NCLB and the extent to which state implementation decisions managed to undo the centralizing objectives of the law. This paper introduces a state-level measure of NCLB stringency that helps shed light on these issues. The measure is available for 49 states and the District of Columbia and covers most years under NCLB (2003–2011). Importantly, the measure does not depend on population characteristics of the state. It varies only because of state-level decisions about rule exemptions, standards, and proficiency trajectories. Overall, we find that while NCLB was successful in encouraging states to adopt higher and more consistent performance standards for schools, it also provided much more flexibility and customization in state-level accountability policies than is generally realized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measuring public service effectiveness has become a central issue for public authorities worldwide, often driven by governmental pressures to ensure value for money. In this context, social media data represent a potential powerful tool in the hands of public authorities to support the evaluation of public service performance. By relying on an action research project in the higher education field, this study explores how social media data can contribute to measure service effectiveness by focusing specifically on Twitter in the higher education field. The final aim of the paper is to develop a set of measures, derived from Twitter data, to quantify the effectiveness of higher education services. This investigation supports a broader discussion about the extent to which social media data can contribute to performance measurement in the public sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, policymakers and scholars argued that state education agencies (SEAs) should move away from simply acting as compliance monitors and take on more prominent roles as providers of technical support to schools and school districts. Scholars find that SEAs have struggled to do so, yet there is little empirical work to explain what SEAs do or why they struggle. This study looks at Michigan's Partnership model for School and District turnaround, which began in 2018 and includes the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) as a formal partner in building the capacity of school districts to craft and meet ambitious student learning targets. Analyzing interviews with MDE "liaisons" and turnaround leaders, I find that Partnership leaders reported a deeper sense of trust with the SEA compared to prior years because liaisons were more focused on support and understanding individual school/district contexts. However, supports were generally "passive" (e.g., sending standardized emails with resources/links; helping navigate compliance issues) rather than targeted technical assistance that helped Partnership leaders build capacity. I argue that this was in part due to the SEA's conflicting role as both accountability monitor and technical assistance provider. I show how SEAs navigated this dynamic and provide suggestions for how SEAs can balance district autonomy with support through trust building, ideas of "controlled autonomy," and "flexible specificity," which recommends highly specific technical guidance paired with ongoing processes of feedback and experimentation from implementers so that guidance matches context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New York City offers an example of the national trend to expand dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs, yet only a small proportion of multilingual learners are enrolled in these programs in city schools. Our examination of new DLBE programs in three city schools builds on research about the "gentrification" of DLBE. Specifically, our findings show how school leaders opened DLBE programs to re-engineer the demographics of their student population by enrolling more White, privileged students in the name of "school turnaround"—namely, to increase enrollment and popularity in a school choice context and improve performance on accountability measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]