The Road to Good Governance: Via the Path Less Accountable? The Effectiveness of Fiscal Accountability in Liberia

Accountability mechanisms are touted as a path to “good governance.” But are accountability mechanisms a sure route to achieving the objectives of “good governance”? Limited case studies have offered inconsistent evidence (Blair, 2000; Charlick, 2001; Devas & Grant, 2003). But empirical evidence...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Krawczyk, Kelly, Sweet-Cushman, Jennie, Muhula, Raymond
Format: Journal Article
Language:en_US
Published: Taylor and Francis 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10986/15401
Description
Summary:Accountability mechanisms are touted as a path to “good governance.” But are accountability mechanisms a sure route to achieving the objectives of “good governance”? Limited case studies have offered inconsistent evidence (Blair, 2000; Charlick, 2001; Devas & Grant, 2003). But empirical evidence of the relationships among principles of good governance—high citizen participation, low levels of corruption, high-quality service delivery—and accountability mechanisms is lacking. We examine the effectiveness of accountability mechanisms in Liberia and find relationships between measures of county level fiscal accountability and measures of good governance do not always produce expected results, making fiscal accountability mechanisms no guarantee for achieving goals of good governance.