Public Accountability

What makes some local governments thrive while others fall short of answerability? What factors promote or hinder local accountability? To find answers to these questions, the study employs Principal Agent model, where citizens are principals and local government leaders, their agents. The major theoretical argument is: citizen awareness; local government capacity and political history affect accountability. Adopting a comparative case study methodology, primary data was collected using in-depth interview of 12 respondents; supplemented with observation and document review. The major methodological challenge is operationalization of accountability, as few empirical studies have been conducted on the accountability. Findings of the study indicate that besides communication mechanism, capacity of internal audit department and leadership, informal accountability greatly influences variation in local accountability. Therefore we recommend an empirical study focusing on informal accountability in developing country context, which would enrich the literature.