Who is this for? How felt accountability shapes the enactment of accountability in public service delivery.

What makes accountability work? To answer this question, public administration research has long focused on formal mechanisms—–rules, audits, and performance indicators—intended to ensure that public employees answer for their actions. Yet these mechanisms alone rarely determine how accountability p...

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Publicado en:Journal of Public Administration Research & Theory Vol. 36; no. 3; pp. 361 - 376
Autor principal: Ernst, Margit
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Oxford University Press / USA Jul2026
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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      dt: Jul2026
      vid: 36
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      pub: Oxford University Press / USA
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        atl: Who is this for? How felt accountability shapes the enactment of accountability in public service delivery.
      aug:
        au: Ernst, Margit
        affil: Department of Social Sciences and Business, Roskilde School of Governance, Roskilde University, 4000 Roskilde, DenmarkDepartment of Social Work, UCL University College, 5230 Odense, Denmark
      su:
        Public officers
        Public administration
        Ethnology research
        Government accountability
        Subjectivity
        Institutional environment
      sug:
        subj:
          Public officers
          Public administration
          Ethnology research
          Other General Government Support
          Government accountability
          Subjectivity
          Institutional environment
      keyword:
        accountability regimes
        copyrightHolder:Public Management Research Association
        copyrightYear:2026
        ethnography
        felt accountability
        inLanguage:en
        public service delivery
        publisher:Oxford University Press
        sameAs:https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muag011
        street-level bureaucracy
        accountability regimes
        copyrightHolder:Public Management Research Association
        copyrightYear:2026
        ethnography
        felt accountability
        inLanguage:en
        public service delivery
        publisher:Oxford University Press
        sameAs:https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muag011
        street-level bureaucracy
      ab: What makes accountability work? To answer this question, public administration research has long focused on formal mechanisms—–rules, audits, and performance indicators—intended to ensure that public employees answer for their actions. Yet these mechanisms alone rarely determine how accountability plays out in practice. Rather, it depends on how they are recognized, internalized, and enacted by those expected to comply. This realization has spurred growing interest in how employees perceive and enact accountability in the context of public service delivery. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this study unpacks how street-level bureaucrats navigate tensions between formal accountability demands and their internalized perceptions of accountability. The findings reveal how employees weigh, reinterpret, or reframe accountability based on what they perceive to be at stake. To conceptualize this, the article introduces a concentric model of accountability.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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