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- Agerberg, Mattias, 1986, et al.
(author)
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Gender aspects of government auditing.
- 2018
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In: Gender and corruption. Historical roots and new avenues for research.. - : Palgrave Macmillan. - 9783319709284
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Book chapter (peer-reviewed)
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| 3. |
- Gustavson, Maria
(author)
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Auditing Good Government in Africa. Public Sector Reform, Professional Norms and the Development Discourse
- 2014
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Book (other academic/artistic)abstract
- T he inability of many democratic governments in Africa to govern effectively has been an important factor in the many problems that the continent and its constituent countries have faced over the past decades. The question for scholars has been in learning what has caused the endemic failure of public institutions throughout Africa and understanding how to create good government in the future of the continent. Strongly supported by empirical evidence, this book challenges the existing literature on the subject by breaking with the traditional notion among academics that the key to good government in Africa is through the creation of unique administrative structures, or at the very least developing significantly adapted foreign structures with an emphasis on the specific structure of African societies. Instead the author contrasts this notion with theories from other research fields suggesting that public officials are likely to be interested in following professional norms and that organizations generally strive to imitate each other, regardless of geographical location. This book presents rich original empirical research from the field of state audit in Sub-Saharan Africa where the above different theoretical approaches are empirically explored. The research results contradict many assumptions made in the literature on development and points to the importance of adding other dimensions, such as professional norms, to nuance the discussion of the future of the African continent.
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| 4. |
- Gustavson, Maria
(author)
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Auditing the African State. International Standards and Local Adjustments
- 2012
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Norms for how to create accountability within the public sector have long historic roots in organizing the democratic society, where auditors are particular public servants controlling the rest of the public sector performance. Significant divergent understandings of the establishment and development of such accountability mechanisms within states in Sub-Saharan African countries however exists within two different bodies of literature. Due to negative historic experiences and failures of public administration reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa, several scholars within the development literature argue for the necessity of developing unique administrative structures that encompass the specific character of their societies. Due to lack of legitimacy and due to significant differences between Western countries and Sub-Saharan Africa, Western models are regarded to not be appropriate in these contexts. In contrast, in a strand of the organization literature, scholars claim that an observed behavior among organizations is their desire to become legitimate within their field of similar organizations, which in turn leads to homogenization among organizations, in structure and in practice, regardless of the geographical location. The thesis presents a study of the public audit arenas in Sub-Saharan Africa and of the Supreme Audit Institutions in Namibia and Botswana, where the above presented theories are tested. The results reveal a strong professional identity among African auditors, where they constantly reform their organizations to better encompass the requirements in the internationally described norms for auditing. Local circumstances were regarded by the auditors in general as obstacles, which they strived to overcome in order to achieve more legitimacy within their organizational field. The results of the study contrasts to much in the contemporary development literature describing African public sector organizations, and provides new insights on how to understand public sector reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa.
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| 5. |
- Gustavson, Maria, et al.
(author)
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Can Auditing Generate Trust? The Organisation of Auditing and the Quality of Government
- 2013
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In: Trust and Organizations. Confidence Across Borders. - New York : Palgrave Macmillan. - 9781137370747 ; , s. 41-63
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Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The democratic model of society may be said to be based on a contract between the people and the authorities. The people grant to the authorities—for simplicity’s sake, we will use the term “the state” here, but it could just as well be regional or local authorities—the administration of a number of public goods. In modern societies, this not only applies to defense and the legal system, but also to other duties, such as health care, social insurance, education, and infrastructure. In order for this to be achieved, significant financial resources (taxes) are also transferred from the people to the state. Even if there is a continual political and ideological discussion in terms of the exact proportion of these tasks to be managed within the public sphere, and as regards how much the citizens should be expected to pay for this, in the majority of societies there exists a relative consensus that such tasks are of major importance to the citizens and that the resources to be reserved must be significant. Consequently, the social contract needs to be based on a huge dose of trust. Citizens must be able to be confident that the public goods the state is committed to provide will be executed, and executed in a legitimate manner. On the day when a citizen needs, for example, health care, pension, or elderly care, then these services are to be available and are to be delivered in an acceptable and effective manner. Representative democracy implies that citizens are able to exercise control to ensure that this is the case by voting in general elections. Politicians wishing to be reelected then, according to this model, have a strong interest in appearing to be reliable in terms of having fulfilled the terms of the social contract.
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