This research examines the issue: the ôaccountingizationö of government adequately reconciles managerial decentralization with democratic accountability. In approaching this topic, the work of Schick and Spicer are emphasized and supported by the work of several other scholars.
The accountingization of government, though fraught with problems in implementation, is a strong and important step toward improving the efficiency of public administration while increasing democratic accountability of government. The experience in Britain and elsewhere has shown that divestiture of central bureaucratic controls over public administration has not always been accompanied by flexibility at divisional levels (Schick, 1990, pp. 26-27). Oftentimes, headquarters in the divisions will supplant central controls and subvert operational flexibility. Nevertheless, the objective of decentralization is to empower local divisions with the flexibility to address specific problems in new and creative ways. The division managers thus become directly accountable for their actions. And by developing a system of ôaccountingization,ö these division managers are given an incentive to produce value for money.
Historical experience can be informative on this issue. As colonial powers were routed from the third world around midcentury, it is not surprising that the new, indigenous governments that replaced them were almost everywhere highly centralized. A centralized administrative system was normally part of the new government's inheritance from the colonists. Then, too, since agriculture and natural resources were the base of the economies in these countries, they focused public investment on national infrastructure networks that supported broad regional development (e.g., dams, irrigation) and marketing its output (main roads, ports); and these had to be planned from the center. By the 1970s, however, the performance of most of these governments was commo...