Democracy, Accountability, and Evaluation

Background: The focus of the article concerns the final step in the accountability chain in democratic societies, the one between the people and their elected representatives. The importance of this relationship has meant that questions regarding accountability and independent scrutiny have been important in the democratic discussions for more than 2300 years. Based on a discussion of this relationship, the article asks the question of what role evaluation can have in strengthening this relationship. Purpose: Trust and mistrust must be balanced in a democratic society. An important prerequisite for this balance is that the citizens know that those to whom they have entrusted power are under constant and independent scrutiny. Setting: The expansion of evaluation has meant that the amount of information, which potentially can be useful in the final step of the accountability chain, has increased. This development suggests that it is today easier than in previous times to hold the elected accountable. However, surveys and indexes show a different picture. More “old” democracies are described as flawed democracies. And it is not difficult to note developments in many democratic nations which seem to reflect increased mistrust in the elected. We can also find indications of a lack of trust in evaluative information delivered by government offices, audit, inspections and research bodies. This seems most obvious in extreme situations, crises, breakdowns, suspicions of abuse of power and corruption or what is seen as just shocking incompetence, where routine oversight does not give trustworthy answers to the questions raised. The article points out that such situations seem to demand something extraordinary, ad hoc accountability mechanisms. Intervention: N/a Research design: N/a Data collection and analysis: Systematic qualitative analysis. Particular attention is paid to the publications of Inteval in the area of accountability, and the role of investigating commissions in Sweden. Findings: Since the 1960s accountability has been an important part of the evaluation discourse and has also been seen as an important purpose for evaluation. However, the article points out that the debate about accountability reveals tensions within the evaluation field. The conclusion, given the background of lack of trust in many democracies, is that it is important that the evaluation community, more than earlier, emphasizes the importance of accountability and discuss how the evaluation practice can contribute to enhanced accountability.