Engaging Citizens to Counter Corruption for Better
Public Service Delivery and Achievement of the
Millennium Development Goals
Session 2
Engaging citizens to counter corruption:
scope of analysis and rationale
Enrique Peruzzotti
Di Tella University and CONICET - Argentina
peruzzot@utdt.edu
Dimensions of the concept of accountability
.
TRANSPARENCY
access to relevant and reliable information
ANSWERABILITY
obligation of public officials to inform about their activities and justify
their decisions
ENFORCEMENT
The authority to impose sanctions to those public officials who have
violated the law or who have not fulfilled their obligations or to rectify
policies
Traditional approach: arenas and agents of accountability
Horizontal mechanisms
Auditors
Comptroller General
Prosecutor General
Executive
Legislative
Judiciary
Elections
Individual Citizens
Public Sphere
I
Civil Society
Vertical Mechanisms
Media
New developments: creation of new agencies & mechanisms and
emergence of social accountability politics
.
Supply Side
Creation of new
agencies & mechanisms
Demand side
Social accountability
politics
•Anticorruption agencies
•Ombudsman
•Human Rights Commissions
•Social policy councils
•Participatory Budgeting
•Participatory urban planning
•Score cards
•New constitutional mechanisms for rights protection
•Citizen complaint mechanisms
•Citizen Audits
•Social watchdogs organizations (budgets, public works, corruption,
human rights, environment, corruption, etc.)
•Watchdog and investigative journalism (media exposes of
governmental wrongdoing)
• Victim’s movements of illegal encroachments by the state
•Public interest litigation and lobbying
• Right to information movements
•Grass roots movements demanding access to public services
New developments in democratic accountability
Auditors
Comptroller General
Prosecutor General
Ombudsman
HR Commissions
Anti-corruption agencies
Executive
Legislative
Citizen
Complaint
Systems &
Score Cards
Policy
Councils
Judiciary
Articulated
Oversight
Social
Individual Citizens
Judicialization
Lobbying
accountability
ICivil Society
Media
Right to information campaigns
Exposes of corruption & illegal
encroachments
politics
Public strategies to enhance accountability and
challenge corruption in the provision of public services
Bad policies
prevent efficient or equitable distribution of public services
Corruption (abuse of entrusted power for private gain)
Poorly designed/implemented public policies
Accountability
not just as mechanisms for preventing/ sanctioning
wrongdoing (logic of procedures) but also mechanisms to
improve information, deliberation to enhance the quality of
public policies or service delivery (logic of consequence)
Enhancing Accountability in Public Service Provision
.
Control of
procedures
Development of
different sort of top
down and bottom
up oversight
mechanisms to
prevent corruption
Accountability
In Public
Services
Influence outcomes
More, direct,
public and
inclusive interphases between
service providers,
citizens and public
officials
Citizen participation and governmental accountability
To enhance the responsiveness and
effectiveness of service providers
Citizen
Engagement
To expand the system of formal
oversight agencies to prevent
corruption and other forms of official
wrongdoing
Transparency
The provision of information is not enough:
it also matters the quality of such information
“Opaque” transparency policies
• Disclosure of irrelevant data
• Information presented in a format that makes it difficult for ordinary citizens to
comprehend it
• Disclosure of unreliable data
Information Politics
•
•
Generation of alternative and independent sources
of information
Filling out information deficits or challenging official data
• Translation and dissemination
• Right to Access to Information Initiatives
• Improving signaling systems
Citizen struggles for right to information in India
Right to information act (2002)
Creation of a statutory right to governmentheld information
.
National
campaign by
the MKSS
(workers and
farmers power
association) in
the state of
Rajasthan
Access to financial records of state agencies to
monitor ground-level public expenditure activity
(paper audit)
Social audits (direct on the ground audit)
MKSS team of activist auditors that engage in
meticulous research including interviews with
workers and contractors of public works, villages
who observe the quality work or its absence, etc.
Answerability
.
Creation of adequate channels of feedback between
service providers and citizens
(mutual learning)
Participatory institutions
(social audits, participatory budgeting, health and educational councils, etc.)
Input dimension
Output dimension
Better signaling of needs
More efficient use of existing resources
Voice to previously marginalized groups (+ equity)
More equitable distribution of public goods
More public and deliberative channels (vs.
clientelism)
Reduces discretion, improves oversight
Increased ownership of the governance process
Increased legitimacy of policies
Brazilian Health Councils
Creation of mandatory policy councils
Improvement in access to health services by the poor
(health appointments x capita, number of hospital beds, money spent per appointment, infant mortality)
Local/city
administration
Representatives
of health care
service
professionals
Private health
care providers
Representatives
of users of health
care services
(low income and
little education)
Social demands for enforcement:
officials can be called into question by informal social mechanisms
.
Social accountability politics
Social and media exposes of governmental wrongdoings
Activation of
Horizontal
Mechanisms of
Control
Ombudsmen
Courts
Consumer Protection
Agencies
Public Service Regulatory
Bodies
Anti-corruption Offices
To increase
reputational
costs for corrupt
behaviors/
lower the social
tolerance
threshold
Whistle blowing
by permanent
social watchdogs
organizations
Articulated
Oversight
Articulated oversight to enforce the execution of the master plan for
Matanza / Riachuelo basin
Supreme Court
Federal Court
Auditor General
Ombudsman
Execution of a master plan to provide basic urban services to the population living in the basin (sewage, water,
roads, housing, environmental clean up, etc.
Advocacy NGOs
Grass-roots community
organizations
Universities
Variety of mechanisms of citizen engagement to enhance
governmental accountability
LEGAL
ACCOUNTABILITY
STATE
HYBRID
CIVIL SOCIETY
INDIVIDUAL
CITIZEN
Activation of
Horizontal
Agencies
Articulated
oversight
between social
and horizontal
mechanisms
Media exposes
Complaint
mechanisms
Right to
information
campaigns
Social watchdogs
POLITICAL
ACCOUNTABILITY
Increased use
of Legislative
and Judiciary
Institutions
Policy Councils
with decisionmaking
prerogatives
Public interest
lobbying in the
legislative
Use of courts to
access services/
challenge policies
Voting
Complaint
mechanisms/
Score cards