About the Book
Over the past two decades public accountability has become not only an icon in political, managerial, and administrative discourse but also the object of much scholarly analysis across a broad range of social and administrative sciences.
This handbook provides a state of the art overview of recent scholarship on public accountability. It collects, consolidates, and integrates an upsurge of inquiry currently scattered across many disciplines and subdisciplines. It provides a one-stop-shop on the subject, not only for academics who study accountability, but also for practitioners who are designing, adjusting, or struggling with mechanisms for accountable governance.
Drawing on the best scholars in the field from around the world, The Oxford Handbook of Public Accountability showcases conceptual and normative as well as the empirical approaches in public accountability studies. In addition to giving an overview of scholarly research in a variety of disciplines, it takes stock of a wide range of accountability mechanisms and practices across the public, private and non-profit sectors, making this volume a must-have for both practitioners and scholars, both established and new to the field.
The Oxford Handbook of Public Accountability is edited by Mark Bovens, Robert E. Goodin and Thomas Schillemans.
A Very Bookish Stay
Mark Bovens describes his time at NIAS as a very ‘bookish’ stay.
Mark Bovens: “My stay at NIAS in the spring semester as the Van Doorn Fellow, has been a very ‘bookish’ stay. I not only consumed a large amount of books, efficiently provided by the library staff, but I also produced various sorts of books. First of all, I finished the 8th edition of our textbook Openbaar bestuur (together with Paul ‘t Hart and Mark van Twist), which was released by Kluwer in August 2012. Secondly, Robert Goodin, Thomas Schillemans and I made enormous progress in editing the Oxford Handbook of Public Accountability, published by OUP in 2013. Finally, I delivered the first Van Doorn Lecture at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam on 21 June 2012, which was published as a small booklet too. Old fashioned academic books – very fitting at an institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, and great fun to write.”