Ackerman, John M. --- "Understanding Independent Accountability Agencies" [2010] ELECD 818; in Rose-Ackerman, Susan; Lindseth, L. Peter (eds), "Comparative Administrative Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Comparative Administrative Law

Editor(s): Rose-Ackerman, Susan; Lindseth, L. Peter

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848446359

Section: Chapter 16

Section Title: Understanding Independent Accountability Agencies

Author(s): Ackerman, John M.

Number of pages: 12

Extract:

16 Understanding independent accountability
agencies
John M. Ackerman*


Over the past two decades there has been a veritable explosion in the number and power
of independent accountability agencies throughout the world (Ackerman 2010). The
spread of electoral institutes, ombudsmen, anti-corruption agencies and other oversight
institutions has paralleled the equally important upsurge in independent regulatory
agencies and new constitutional courts (Jordana and Levi Faur 2006, SCJN 2008). This
chapter offers a theoretical approach to understanding the present conditions and future
potential of these new independent accountability agencies. It also provides an overview
of the different ways in which countries have tried to incorporate these institutions into
their respective constitutional frameworks.
There is an extensive literature on regulatory agencies and constitutional courts that is
helpful in gaining an initial analytical hold on accountability agencies (Stone Sweet 2000,
Rose-Ackerman 2007). Nevertheless, it is a mistake to import these analyses wholesale.
Independent accountability agencies have their own institutional dynamics and must be
understood on their own terms (Vázquez Irizarry 2007). Why are such agencies created?
What are their fundamental strengths and weaknesses? What are the most impor-
tant factors that explain their effectiveness or failure at fulfilling their constitutional
mandates? I try to respond to these questions in the first section of this chapter.
In the second section, I offer the initial results of a global survey of autonomous agen-
cies in the constitutions of the world. The academic literature includes numerous case
studies of specific agencies and countries (Schedler 1999). ...