The (re)production of accountability within the Swedish public sector

Karlsson, Tom,1979Gothenburg University,Göteborgs universitet,Förvaltningshögskolan,School of Public Administration (författare)

Accountability and responsibility are two notions that are deeply connected and intertwined. The prevailing notion is that personnel should be held accountable for actions made that are connected to the area which they are responsible for. However, contemporary research has tried to understand the underlying assumptions of what accountability is. In this sense accountability becomes the alignment between overall societal norms and individual actions. But whereas previous research has been content with either an actor- or structure approach this paper tries to bridge these standpoints by engaging Giddens (1984) Structuration theory. Viewing accountability as a social system, this paper focuses on extending our knowledge of how this is produced and reproduced during organisational change within the Swedish public sector. The case used in this paper derives from in-depth inter- views, participatory observations and documental studies of the Swedish social in- surance agency. The analysis is conducted though a separation and identification of structures of signification, domination and legitimation. This paper concludes that the diverging modes of managerial- and bureaucratic discourses, derived from changes in surrounding societal norms and organisational control systems, sup- ports and reinforces the reproduction of accountability as a social system.

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