000 02586naa a2200193uu 4500
001 8463
003 OSt
005 20190211154454.0
008 021120s2005 xx ||||gr |0|| 0 eng d
100 1 _aDUNN, Delmer D
_93105
245 1 0 _aU.S. local government managers and the complexity of responsibility and accountability in democratic governance
260 _c2001
520 3 _aThis study examines accountability and responsibility as they apply to local government managers in the United States. The Friedrich-Finer debate defined contrasting views of accountability and responsibility, with Finer advancing elected officials and Friendrich advancing the profession and public sentiment for establishing responsibility and accountability for nonelected officials. More recent scholars also include the courts, media, and more precise definitions of public sentiment in addition to those identified earlier by Friendrich and Finer. This study surveyed local government managers, asking them to indicate the importance of these sources of accountability as they define their responsabilities, as they consider new policy options, and as they respond to rountine matters, related to their jobs. The 488 respondents assigned more importance to their professions than to other sources when they define their responsibilites, but they rated the governing body more important than others when they consider new policy options or when they respond to routine matters. They assessed court cases and the media last. The study concludes that both Friedrich and Finer provide too narrow a definition of accountability and responsibility. The accountability-responsibility relationship among elected officials, public administrators and the public occurs in multiple and complex ways. The complexity of this relationship is marked by the need for adminstrators to be simultaneously empowered (by the definiton of their responsibility, both objectively and subjectively) and constrained (through mechanisms of accountability, which then feed into definitions of responsibility). These contraditory, even paradoxical, concepts make it easy for scholars to divide by emphasizing one or the other (as did Friedrich and Finer) rather than to examine how they work together simultaneously to achieve responsiveness from administrative officials in a democractic polity.\
700 1 _aLEGGE, Jerome S., Jr
_917761
773 0 8 _tJournal of Public Administration
_g11, 1, p. 73-88
_d, 2001
_w
942 _cS
998 _a20021120
_bCassio
_cCassio
998 _a20060619
_b1115^b
_cQuiteria
999 _aConvertido do Formato PHL
_bPHL2MARC21 1.1
_c8608
_d8608
041 _aeng