We read all the time that some person or organization in power should be “held accountable.” Such demands are made on the UN Secretary-General, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Board of Directors of Enron, the President of the United States, and sometimes even non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as Greenpeace. But what does this mean in world politics, where democratic accountability through elections is lacking and legal means of checking power wielders are fragmented and often ineffective? Can abuses of power in world politics be controlled through processes of accountability, or is “accountability talk” just hot air? My argument is that although accountability-based criticisms in world politics are often misplaced, accountability is a meaningful concept. Properly applied, it can be a useful tool to limit abuses of power.

Accounting for Accountability

An accountability relationship is one in which an individual, group, or other entity demands that an agent report on his or her activities and can impose costs on the agent. In an authorized or institutionalized accountability relationship, the requirement to report and the right to sanction are mutually accepted. Other accountability relationships are contested: individuals, groups, or entities claim the right to hold agents accountable, but the agents do not recognize a corresponding obligation.

Democratic accountability within a constitutional system is a relationship in which power wielders are accountable to broad publics. Applied to world politics, democratic accountability could be conceptualized as a system in which agents whose actions make a sufficiently great impact on the lives of people in other societies must report to those people and be subject to sanctions from them, according to political science professor David Held.

But accountability need not be democratic. Indeed, it can also be hierarchical, in which subordinates are accountable to superiors, or pluralistic, as in Madisonian constitutionalism. Actual systems of accountability in constitutional democracies combine all three sources of accountability—democratic, hierarchic, and pluralistic.

Moreover, internal accountability involves arrangements within institutions to hold component entities accountable, usually because the accountability holder is providing legitimacy or financial resources to the agent. Because providing authorization and support creates means of influence, such influence can be used to close any “accountability gap” that may open between normative values of internal accountability and actual practice.

In external accountability, the entity is accountable to people who are outside the entity and whose lives the entity affects. The normative question then arises: should the acting entity be accountable to all those it affects? If so, an empirical question arises: given the valid claim for accountability, is accountability achieved or is there an accountability gap?

Rulers generally dislike being held accountable. Yet they often have reasons to submit to accountability mechanisms. In a democratic or pluralistic system, accountability may be essential to maintaining public confidence, and some degree of accountability in any system may be necessary to maintain the credibility of the agent. That is, the ruler may find other dimensions of power more important than lack of accountability. Furthermore, constitutional systems may be designed to limit abuses of power without reducing the amount of influence the leaders have when action is necessary. But we can expect power holders to seek to avoid accountability when they can do so without jeopardizing other goals. And in the absence of a constitutional system, the ability to avoid being held externally accountable can be viewed as one dimension of power. In other words, accountability is itself a power term. To discuss accountability is to discuss power.

In world politics, internal accountability may or may not be strong, depending on whether states or international organizations have constitutional arrangements that promote it. With respect to powerful states, however, external accountability is weak. It goes almost without saying that where conflicts of interest are pronounced, powerful states will not let themselves be held accountable to their adversaries. The United States is not about to be held accountable to Al Qaeda for US anti-terrorism tactics. It is also true that asymmetries of power attenuate accountability. Europe will not be held accountable for its immigration policies to the countries of origin of would-be immigrants. Only when they have interests in holding others accountable—as with World Trade Organization (WTO) policies—are powerful states disposed to let themselves be held accountable.

What entities need to be held accountable in world politics, and how could this objective be achieved?

Accountability of Multilateral Organizations

Consider the entities conventionally held accountable on a transnational basis. The most prominent, judging from demonstrations, press coverage, and even scholarly articles, are major inter-governmental organizations concerned with economic globalization: the European Union, World Bank, IMF, and WTO. Champions of “more accountability” make these organizations major targets, which certainly have deficiencies in accountability and certainly do not meet the standards of accountability for the best-functioning democracies of our era. But ironically, these entities seem to be relatively accountable compared with other key global actors.

These economic institutions are internally accountable to states on the basis of authorization and support. States must create them and continue to fund them. Externally, significant accountability gaps exist. Indeed, many poor people affected by the policies of the IMF, World Bank, and WTO lack any ability to hold the organizations accountable. Nevertheless, there is a vaguely held notion that these people should have some say in what the organizations do—that the “voices of the poor,” in the World Bank’s words, should be heard. Many feel, then, that these organizations should be externally as well as internally accountable.

Various NGOs purporting to speak for and promote principles that help affected people gain legitimacy on the basis of this widespread belief. One result of their endeavors is that the decision-making processes of many multilateral organizations have become remarkably transparent. Indeed, in transparency they now compare well to the decision-making processes of most governments, even some democratic ones. When their processes are not transparent, the chief source of non-transparency is governmental pressure for confidentiality.

But the decentralization and discord characteristic of world politics mean that these organizations cannot keep secrets very well. Important negotiations, such as those about the Multilateral Agreement on Investment several years ago, are almost bound to leak. Leaders then spend much of their time answering charges that are made against their organizations, and seeking to persuade constituencies that the organizations are actually constructive, responsive, and legitimate.