Original
Who is this for? How felt accountability shapes the enactment of accountability in public service delivery
Abstract
Abstract 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.
中文
这是为了谁？感知问责如何塑造公共服务供给中的问责实践
摘要
摘要 问责如何才能发挥作用？为回答这个问题，公共行政研究长期关注正式机制——规则、审计和绩效指标——旨在确保公职人员为其行为负责。然而，仅靠这些机制很少能决定问责在实践中如何展开。相反，这取决于那些被期望遵守者如何认识、内化并实施问责。这一认识促使人们日益关注员工在公共服务供给情境中如何感知和实施问责。基于民族志田野调查，本研究剖析街头官僚如何在正式问责要求与其内化的问责感知之间的张力中行事。研究发现揭示了员工如何根据其所认为的利害关系来权衡、重新解释或重新框定问责。为对此进行概念化，本文提出了一个问责的同心圆模型。
关键词
问责、感知问责、公共服务供给、街头官僚、民族志、问责实践、同心圆模型