CONTROLLING AUTHORITY

Why people become authoritarian and how to tackle authority? I try to answer this by using a power-based analysis.

I. Introduction

In many fields, from psychology to political science, the ontological aspects of power are still debatable. At first glance, power is a relationship between two or more actors in order to achieve concrete results. An actor “A” can influence another actor “B” to obtain results through implicit or coercive means. Power is not only violence, indeed the no-decision or the lack of decision (ignoring the actor “B”) can be considered a manifestation of power. Yet, in this text, I will focus on the latter aspects of power, those related to coercive means, understanding authoritarianism as deviation or abuse of power. I also will focus on the reasons (personal and collective) behind authoritarianism and the forms to restrain it from a social perspective.

In the first part, I discuss some relevant dimensions of power and its connection to authority and legitimacy. The second part consists of an analysis of authoritarianism from psychological to social aspects. The third part discusses accountability as a relationship to restrain authority and improve legitimacy. The fourth part analyzes accountability efficiency and its relation to power asymmetries between two or more actors. The fifth part closes the texts bringing up some limits and problems of accountability. This part is important in order to avoid inefficient outcomes and delusions when it comes to restraining authority.

II. Dimensions of power

To use a metaphor from physics, power is the potential or kinetic “energy” that one actor can deploy against the other to accomplish something. Power can be implemented through different forms, from implicit to coercive means. However, one can trace two dimensions to the execution of power: power based on procedural forms, and power based on substantial forms. The first one relates to authority and the procedures to conduct and deploy power over other actors and groups. The second one relates to legitimacy, the normative foundations that allow and validate the execution of power. Let me explain this division:

1. Power and authority

In this dimension, power is understood as a mechanism. Power is a strategy between two or more actors (Scharpf, 1997). An actor “A” can influence, obligate, manipulate, and even abuse actor “B” by specific tools to reach a foreseen result (achievement of a goal, to maintain the equilibrium of preferences, the concentrate benefits, to share goods, etc.). For example, Machiavelli ((1532)1996) is perhaps the foremost political advisor in history that addressed power as a strategy. For him, the leader or prince should use both charismatic and coercive abilities to sustain his legacy and maintain authority. In that sense, power specially emanates from the ruler. It is a top-down source to consolidate a social position and the advantage of one actor over other ones. It relates and overlaps with the concept of authority.

Authority is amongst the oldest and most widely used concepts in political life, coinciding with its foundation: an Author is an originator of something, and all human artifacts, as well as aggregates, bear the mark of authority. Every definition couples authority with power, but they can be dissociated in content and form. For instance, the consensus tends toward Max Weber's three-fold treatment, distinguishing tradition-based authority, rational-legal authority, and charismatic authority. Weber's “traditional authority” is a vision of tradition lodged in communities. For instance, wisdom, religion, property are rooted in a strong sense of continuity and satisfaction through loyalty that attaches members to their social positions, ranks, and superiors . The “rational-legal authority” has permeated most functions of modern social and economic systems. It depends upon the cogency of an argument, the belief in the validity of the legal statute, and functional competence based on rationally created rules. The idea that rationality and legality ought to govern our lives has become a cultural landmark in the last two centuries. Yet, “charismatic authority” is perhaps the most controversial among the three Weberian ideal types, as it involves differences in both empirical and normative grounds . The combination of mass politics and mass communication has made populist leadership a dominant feature in contemporary politics, as it cuts across various cultural traditions and different stages of politics and culture.

The authority concept relates to the forms of its authorization, origins, and the capacity to deploy tools of exceptionality and normalization. From a justice perspective, authority does not equal power (as power is diffuse and is something that cannot be fully concentrated in one place and actor). Authority is the ability to retain, regulate, execute, and even implement social outcomes based on power and specific interactions with other players, like in punishing people or nourishing restorative forms of socialization. A player gains authority when it has the capacity (either by tradition, rational-legal norms, or social charism) to regulate the flows of power that will enhance different actions of “imperium” (mandates), “potestas” (coercion), and “auctoritas” (recognized prestige), either in positive ways to construct policies or in negative ways in order to block policies from other players .

Thus, authority is not only constructed via coercion and legal norms. It can also be fostered via charism, prestige, and even by the social demands from the people that receive and are affected by an authority. These notions lead us to the other part of the relationship between actor “A” and actor “B”. When the former executes authority over the latter, what validates its authority? How “B” can receive the authority from “A” without deviation and abuse of power?

2. Power and legitimacy

In a first dimension, as mentioned, power relates to procedures and strategies to reach a certain outcome. In a second dimension, however, power relates to the normative conditions that validate and sustain authority. For example, justice should not be only the application of Law enforcement and the punishment of those who violate the rules. The theory of justice and power is very extensive to be inserted here, but this practice also relates to moral, social, and cognitive conditions that affect and are affected by several actors (from justice officials, police officers, to offenders, inmates, and victims). That is, the community of actors that are attached to this sphere should be inserted in the creations of legitimate sources that validate justice. Justice cannot be circumscribed only to those actors who execute authority. In short, justice, as every form of power, should be legitimated.

Since authorities are not supernatural and are born amidst human forces, the inception of authority, the authorization of authority by the people, is perhaps the most important element to be circumscribed to authority. In that sense, the normative horizon of authority relies on the individuals or communities that are the source of sovereignty. In other words, people authorizing authority serves as the major check and balance of the socio-political order. From this level, different scales and procedures would emerge to authorize and restrain authority. In that sense, to close the circle or to give meaning to authority, legitimacy appears as a complementary and interconnected value that orients authority.

Legitimacy serves power by enlarging and stabilizing its domain. It empowers commands from an authority that is obeyed by coercion or actions that are performed without the use of force. Whereas Weber defined legal-rational authority as the main form of legitimacy in complex capitalist and bureaucratic societies, there is a vast territory of legitimate power outside the direct influence of the legal system. Authority stemmed from legality and legitimacy, while highly correlated, do not necessarily coincide. The secularization of power depends upon its capacity to impose or attract (self-)interest as a legitimating force regulated through positive law. However, the law is essential but not self-validating. “Rule of law” depends upon processes by which laws are seen as by-products of successful resolution of conflicting interests. Although the Rule of law continues as a source of legitimation and control, it became only one of several sources of legitimacy, including plebiscite based on mass opinion and referenda . In turn, charismatic authority is perhaps the most volatile source of authority as there is a belief that the leader concentrates authority and legitimacy in the same entity. Every political leader is a charismatic authority to a certain degree . The deviations and typologies of this form of authority are not our goals. Yet, the excessive charismatic authority can be recognized as the failed attempt to build a connection between authorization and authority. This is because a party or leader can try but cannot congregate and simplify the whole social contract in a single organization or person.

In that sense, authors like Habermas ((1991) 2015) affirm that the legitimization of the Rule of Law emanates especially to legal procedures but also from the people. For him, people must submit to the Rule of Law insofar as they have participated in their creation and destination. The citizen is, at the same time, the receiver and the author of state procedures. The idea that sovereignty emanates and must be conducted by the people is not new and is present from thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, Hannah Arendt, and Michel Foucault. Yet, Habermas attributes to the judicial sphere a self-legitimization characteristic and a decisive function to conduct the preferences and participation of active citizens. Hence, institutions such as Constitutional Courts are to protect the Rule of law but, at the same time, they should not be opaque before the population at the expanse of becoming technocratic machines. When a political decision is taken for everyone, everyone must speak to enhance that decision (Habermas, (1991) 2015). Even if deliberation is ignored most of the time, only when citizens enjoy full rights of protection and participation, then one can define this scenario as a deep democracy. Therefore, the condition of the rule of law cannot be reduced to mere rights of protection that allow individual autonomy. Rather, individual and public authority are mutually dependent and complementary. But sometimes they can collide as law and public preferences are not synchronized by default (Schaap, 2009).

To summarize, legitimacy is the ground on which citizens authorize authority. It is the substance that validates power. Authority and power can be exercised without legitimacy. However, in terms of substantial-quality and efficiency, it would be inferior to legitimate power. Despite being abstract, diffuse, and even contradictory, the people are the main source of legitimacy and every public action should be directed to them. Since people are the authors and receivers of governing actions, they are the “imperfect” base that enhances a more legitimate base to authority.

III. Authoritarian excesses

As discussed, authority can be executed as a strategy and can be validated via legitimate sources, such as the people. However, authority without controls or un-legitimate leaders are not only possible but also easy to find throughout history. An authoritarian action would correspond to situations where power is conducted through deviation or abuse. The deviation is the ability (rational or subtle) to use power in a consequentialist approach that escapes from established legitimate means (i.e. to pursuing goals other than those established in an initial consent or agreement). Meanwhile, abuse of power is the promotion of a certain goal despite the means and even with the use of unnecessary tools (i.e. pursuing goals by disproportional manners or by ignoring the consequences). The deviation is a matter of “route” and even of no-decision, while abuse is a matter of “intensity and rhythm”. The first relates to the content while the second to the forms of executing power.

In light of that, deviation and abuse of power are “malfunctions” of authority and can be executed simultaneously. In this text, they can be understood as authoritarian excesses or authoritarianism. In that logic, if we want to explore and control those excesses not only in the sphere of criminal justice but also in overall practices, authoritarianism should be explored in personal motivations and collective dimensions. Let me explore the reason for authoritarian excesses on psychological and social grounds.

The reasons why authority is exercised without legitimacy and without control are still open questions. Indeed, in previous work, I support that power cannot be fully tamed and authority cannot be totally controlled in organizations and human actions (Yauri-Miranda, 2018). Yet, this does not mean that authority “malfunctions” cannot be restrained. This stands the importance of controlling the uncontrollable and restraining authority. For example, not all the persons on the same scale of power (authority) or that share the same ideas and sources to execute power behave in the same manner. Some public officials, teachers, leaders, and parents can be more authoritarian than other ones, even in the same social and historical context.

One of the first studies on the authoritarian personality was formulated by Adorno ((1950)2019) during the rise of Nazi-fascism in Germany. In the 1930s, he identified that indeed many of the interviewed people, especially from the middle class, shared authoritarian ideas that justified the imposition of order and the search for peace. To Adorno, even if peace is a legitimate goal in the mind of many people, some of them can support excessive means to achieve it. During the first part of the 20th century, Reich (1970) also mapped the mass psychology of fascism. Reich identified a consequentialist approach to support authority, even by disproportional means, from people that were not necessarily fascist and authoritarian. In those years, Fromm (1971) also identified a correlation between authoritarianism and the defense of powerful leaders as a means to obtain a sense of stability. In psychanalytical terms, the quest for security by any means was understood by Fromm as a manifestation of a “weak ego and a strong superego”, or a strong unconscious personality that was hidden even in “normal” people. The security submission was understood as a paradoxical finding vis-à-vis the protestant ethics of freedom. In other words, the fear of freedom and the burden of choice sometimes was compensated with the necessity to embrace safety and the imposition of order.

Following the line opened by Adorno, those studies found a correlation between authoritarian and conservative personality in the so-called F-Scale of personality. This Scale found seven points but here we summarize only three that were consistent with further studies:

a) View of the world as a dangerous jungle, full of selfish beings;

b) Hierarchical view of the social structure and high estimation of signs of power and status;

c) Negative evaluation of sympathy and generosity (identified with inferiority) and positive evaluation of force and cruelty (identified with a “superior” nature).

Yet, those points were criticized as they only identified authoritarian trends with fascism and ignored extreme-left authoritarianism. Also, their methods were questioned by the clinical studies in the following decades (Jiménez, F., Del Águila, R., Luque, E., Sangrador, J., & Vallespín, F. (2006)). Despite the critiques, the F-Scale of personality developed by Adorno identified authoritarian profiles that were compatible with conventionalism, submission, and aggressiveness. These points were confirmed by studies from scholars such as Altemeyer & Altemeyer (1981), although they reject correlations with superstition, religion, and lack of intelligence as defined by the initial F-Scale of Adorno.

For Altemeyer & Altemeyer (1981), conventionalism reflects uncritical adherence to the conventional values of the middle class or to traditional values. Authoritarians tend to idealize those values, as well as the ethnic, religious, or political groups that defend them (and to which they belong). Submission to authority is the tendency to submit and unconditionally accept authority figures recognized as such by the group itself, or those who are in high positions in organizations or society in general. To those authors, although authoritarians tend to be dominant over those they consider inferior (weaker or from lower-status), they tend to submit themselves to stronger authority figures. Finally, authoritarian aggressiveness consists of the tendency to reject, persecute, or punish the transgressors of conventional values appealing to symbolical and/or physical violence.

In turn, Stanley Milgram (1963) also explored that people follow authoritarian trends or submit themselves to authority despite moral or conscious regrets. In the Milgram experiment, to prove obedience, the experimenter (researcher) gave orders to a volunteer (teacher) so that he/she was able to assess and punish the answers of a third person (learner), who received electrical shocks in case of wrong answers. In reality, there were no shocks. But after the learner was separated from the teacher, the learner set up a tape that played prerecorded sounds for each shock level. As the voltage of the fake shocks increased, the learner began making audible protests, such as banging repeatedly on the wall that separated him from the teacher. When the highest voltages were reached, the learner fell silent. If at any time the volunteer (teacher) indicated a desire to halt the experiment, the experimenter replied to the teacher with four different commands, in this order:

⦁ Please continue.

⦁ The experiment requires that you continue.

⦁ It is absolutely essential that you continue.

⦁ You have no other choice, you must go on.

If the volunteer (teacher) still wished to stop after the four verbal commands, the experiment was halted. Otherwise, it was only halted after the learner received the maximum 450-volt shock three times. The experimenter sometimes replied, “whether the learner likes it or not, you must go on until he learns all the words, so please go on” (Milgram, 1963, p. 371). As result, 65 percent (26 of 40) of experiment participants administered the final massive 450-volt shock, and all administered shocks of at least 300 volts. However, the volunteers were uncomfortable in doing so and every participant paused the experiment at least once to question the experiment. Yet, they give important clues to understand how ordinary people and without any particular hostility can become agents of an aggressive process. Moreover, “even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they were asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people had the resources needed to resist authority” (Milgram, 1974, p. 57), and this example can be transposed to commands in real institutions and groups.

The experiments began in July 1961, three months after the start of the trial of German Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem who also inspired the term “banality of evil” by Hannah Arendt. Milgram devised a psychological study to explain the psychology of genocide. Meanwhile, Arendt answered why many people can commit atrocities based on the lines of they were just following orders as they are involved in impersonal machines of power that can be directed to kill minorities. In a more recent experiment, Burger (2009) replicated Milgram's study and found that obedience rates were only slightly lower than those discovered 45 years earlier.

If one draws from personal testimonies from soldiers, it is possible to see convergent points between these stories and Milgram and Arendt's ideas. For example, the mathematician Freeman Dyson left science at the age of 19 to work with the Royal Air Force's Bomber Command. There, he developed analytical methods for calculating the ideal density for aircraft formations to help the British Air Force bomb German targets during World War II. In his memories, he explains his transformation:

At the beginning of the war, I believed fiercely in the brotherhood of man, called myself a follower of Gandhi, and was morally opposed to all violence. After a year of war, I retreated and said, Unfortunately nonviolent resistance against Hitler is impracticable, but I am still morally opposed to the bombing. A few years later I said, Unfortunately it seems that bombing is necessary in order to win the war, and so I am willing to go to work for Bomber Command, but I am still morally opposed to bombing cities indiscriminately. After I arrived at Bomber command I said, Unfortunately it turns out that we are after all bombing cities indiscriminately, but this is morally justified as it is helping to win the war. A year later I said, Unfortunately it seems that our bombing is not really helping to win the war, but at least I am morally justified in working to save the lives of the bomber crews. In the last spring of the war, I could no longer find any excuses. [...] During the years I was at Bomber Command, my [future] wife lived in that house [in enemy territory where I used to drop bombs]. She was still a child. The nights when the bombers came over, she spent in the shelter. No doubt she was sitting there the night [of the bombings]... (Dyson, 1979, p. 64).

As the Dyson experience shows, humans can be transformed when they are merged into the complexity of politics, and even in the worst conditions, they can believe they execute goodness or are not evil. However, real politics and beliefs are not separated from power. Hence, authority is not just the protection and the search for legitimate results to protect people, either by good or bad means. Giving orders in a specific group is also a process that is not separated from rational, normative, institutional, and even symbolical, irrational, and informal dimensions. For instance, being a soldier is not only being a defender, but it is also being a warrior, a potential saver, a potential destructor, in short: people can be really transformed by the normative and realistic tensions when they follow commands and orders.

One can see, both in Milgram experiment prods (Please continue; the experiment requires that you continue; it is absolutely essential that you continue; you have no other choice, you must go on) and Dyson transformation (Unfortunately it seems that bombing is necessary in order to win the war; Unfortunately it turns out that we are after all bombing cities indiscriminately; Unfortunately it seems that our bombing is not really helping to win the war, but at least I am morally justified in working to save the lives of the bomber crews; I could no longer find any excuses) a gradual scale that erases the leeway to react as an individual. It seems that the most effective form to rise authoritarianism through obedience and commands (and even to foster violent actions), is to introduce a person into a process in which the range of action is constantly constrained by “external” factors. This process is achieved through conformity to the situation/group and through a process of reification (turning subjects into objects) as described by Milgram (1974) in subsequent studies, emphasizing the role of hierarchies and the cohesion of social groups.

Nowadays, researchers know that psychological domains overlap with the social dimension. Authority is rooted in the pre-disposition of psychological variables that might not be activated if they do not encounter social variables such as the pressure of the groups, punishment, fear, awards, benefits, and so on. Yet, it is important to emphasize that conservatism (conventionalism) is different from authoritarianism (submitting to authority and being even aggressive). Indeed, authoritarian trends can emerge even by anti-establishment people who might tend to aggressiveness, fierce opposition to authority, and revolutionary conventionalism. Therefore, for Duckit (1989) authoritarianism acts as a mechanism of group identification and has fluid community individual interactions that are not restricted to specific ideologies and personal profiles. Nothing prevents an individual from being authoritarian in one group and not in the other. Authoritarian people can either abide by or contest rules. They can also change their behavior and way of thinking between the inner-group and the outer-groups. In other words, they can present large differences in behavior patterns between inner groups (“us”) and strangers (“them”).

In short, current psychology not only focus on the personality but prefer to cover situational studies, defining that authoritarianism would emerge in the spatiotemporal interaction between the “social influence + personality type + attitudes (i.e. to act as dominant)”. This situational notion is useful to expand the notion of an authoritarian personality beyond official institutions, illuminating extra-state social groups (from market corporations to civil associations, and even to lousy and organized criminal groups). The informal dynamics of the group, plus the formal interactions, all of them intervene as social influence and merge with personality types that can trigger specific attitudes. Thus, authoritarian practices can be committed even through legal routines and under informal actions; from consolidated and accepted leaders to charismatic and spontaneous influencers; from state bureaucracies to criminal groups; from adults to children. In that sense, authoritarian attitudes can shield a person against outer-groups and the changing social influence. This creates a pathological quest for order and security as a form to maintain that shield and as a way to create trust with other members in the inner group.

Is not surprising, thus, that some people support contemporary charismatic leaders that express very openly their authoritarian personality through the combination of defamation of opposition groups and the claims of unity/fierce around the same leaders (Morelock, 2018).

Social psychological perspectives on current populism are beginning to show how: 1) the division between us (‘the good people’) and them (‘the corrupt elites’/’foreign others’) taps into core intergroup dynamics, 2) economic and cultural processes are construed in terms of basic status concerns, and 3) collective emotions become mobilized through political communication (Obradović, Power, & Sheehy-Skeffington, 2020). Against earlier theories about authoritarianism and submissiveness, recent research also shows that followers strategically promote dominant individuals to leadership positions in order to enhance their ability to aggress other groups. Thus, recent evidence supports the existence of dedicated mechanisms for generating summary impressions of the dominance of potential leaders. For instance, Petersen & Laustsen (2020) demonstrates how preferences for dominant leaders are heightened in contexts of conflict and among individuals prone to view the social world as conflictual. At the same time, they show that followers intuitively fear exploitation from dominant leaders and the political psychology of followership also contains dedicated mechanisms for identifying and counteracting such exploitation. In plain words, saying that people supported Trump, Bolsonaro, Putin, Erdogan, and other strong leaders because they are proto-fascists oversimplifies this phenomenon and can be misleading. Rather, people might fear authority but paradoxically they can support authoritarian leaders, and, at the same, they think they can protect themselves against authoritarian backfires.

Finally, it is also important to recognize the role of those who suffer from authoritarian actions. In that sense, victims should be recognized in the plurality of their reactions and forms beyond passive figures. However, Bachrat & Baratz (1970) analyzed that the reaction of the dominated or of those who suffer authority abuse in politics can be curtailed. In the first place, they found that the powerful usually do not attend to the demands of the subordinates and when the latter manifest themselves, most of the time institutional and distant answers are appointed or continuous amendments are added to the initial answers, postponing the solutions indefinitely. Thus, responsibilities might be evaded, or, when these are taken, the solutions are implemented at a late stage or with many reluctance from the authorities. Secondly, the subordinates themselves, anticipating this state of affairs, probably give up and do not pose any reaction. They fall into a state of general apathy entailing scenarios in which they can assure “It does not matter, politics is always a place of corruption”, or "justice never comes and is blind." Also, those who suffer the most abuse or are the deepest victims of deviations of power tend to be the most reluctant to seek justice. Thirdly, dominant groups exercise such a degree of control over the way the system operates that they are able to determine not only the statements but even the agenda of the dominated (Bachrat & Baratz, 1994). Communicative authority is a hidden way that is difficult to be measured, but it is extremely effective in the performance of power. Finally, one also should take into account the many manifestations of those who experience abuses of power. For example, the information provided by concentration camp survivors and by people released after a kidnapping should not be underestimated. The mosaic of reactions is very vast and ranges from “regression” and “submission”, to the “identification” with the executioners and the Stockholm syndrome (Jiménez, F., Del Águila, R., Luque, E., Sangrador, J., & Vallespín, F., 2006).

Explained the main points that sustain authority and compulsive obedience to authority, topics that still can be developed in further studies, now let me focus on the main form to tackle power. That is, I present another concept, accountability, since this practice can restrain authority and correct deviations and abuses in micro and macro social scenarios. Evidently, not all the abuses of power are related to the above authoritarian trends, as some of the sources might come from etiological motivations (biological pathologies), or as collateral effects from contingent situations that are not repeated (like survivors in unique situations of life and death). In addition, authoritarianism can be manifested by violence, but they should not be mistaken. However, for the sake of simplicity, in the next pages let me consider the above authority “malfunctions” as the main phenomena behind power excesses and as the object to be tackled by accountability. I address accountability especially through the lens of power and at social level, from legal to informal channels. At the individual level, the mental “correction” of authoritarianism would require psychological tools that escape from the scope of this text.

IV. Tackling authority through accountability

A player “A” is accountable if there is another player “B” to whom the first is responsible. Accountability exists only if there is an actor who is accountable to others. Thus, accountability always has a relational aspect; responsibility on the contrary is temporally fixed and can exist without accountability. A father is responsible for their children but only when he is called to demonstrate this responsibility one can speak that he is accountable. A person can also be accountable for being a good colleague, neighbor, and citizen. In all those situations, there must be an individual or a group of people to show accountability: the actor or player “B” that holds one to account. In short, accountability is a relationship and a means to reach ulterior goals rather than a fixed concept or an end per se.

In the following pages, I will focus on public accountability, a mode of accountability in the public; to the public; and for the public. In that sense, not all the relational situations that imply public responsibility are the same as accountability. Voters, politicians, and a group of citizens are audiences with different interests and relations. When those audiences are called to justify, excuse, explain and are corrected (or when they are punished) after certain actions and motivations, accountability is on the move. If this account is given before public attention, accountability is exercised in the public. The account can be expressed in private rooms and behind closed doors, such as in the case of parliamentary committees or judicial courts. In this case, even if the account has a restricted audience, it aims to reach the general public. Thus, one can speak of accountability to the public. Finally, accountability is for a certain objective and purpose.

The objectives of public accountability are multiple as this practice is delimited by scope, time, institutional designs, and resources. Yet, public accountability is primarily related to formal powers, authority, sovereignty, duties, and rights. In the case of excesses of authority, the execution of power (by coercive or by implicit means), must be accountable in order to justify, explain, and correct the very authorization of authority and the consequences of its execution. In other words, accountability not only serves to constrain authority but is also a mechanism to understand, scrutinize, negotiate, and even challenge power.

Considering that the purpose of public accountability is an invitation to encounter the very nature of power and to redefine it, this objective can still be fuzzy and raise distinct problems. The first problem is related to whom “B” is accountable when “A” accounts for “B”. This problem was called the “accountability infinite regress problem” . This problem is found in hierarchical organizations and vertical chains of power. For instance, if “A” is accountable to “B”, then “B” must be accountable to “C”, which in turn is accountable to “D”, and so on. In that sense, a new player needs to receive the account of the latter in order to avoid an unaccountable player immune to justification, explanations, and correction. By this principle, when accountability is arranged in a hierarchy, a problem emerges when the top level of the hierarchy is corrupted. Unfortunately, in some cases, criminal justice, police institutions, and other security organizations might have corrupted top chief directives whose accountability does not exist or is ineffective. The solution here consists of always adding another supervisor, such as other institutions or individuals to whom the top actor of the hierarchy must be accountable.

As there are not infinite players and institutions to watch other ones, a simple solution to the infinite regress problem is to arrange the accounts in a circle. That is, if “A” is accountable to “B”, then “B” is accountable to “C”, and “C” is accountable to “A”, implying in a circle of mutual oversight where the last player reports to the first one. “Each guardian can be a check on every other guardian” . This solution to the infinite regress hierarchical problem is found in political theorists like De Montesquieu . In The Spirit of Laws, he postulated a reciprocal system of checks and balances that inspired the institutional design of contemporary democracies. A judge must be impartial in his/her functions, and legislation must be consulted with the representatives of the people in order to be implemented. Those are cases of the republicanist (res-publica) conception of mutual guardianship. Of course, a guardian might collude against the other one or all the guardians can turn their eyes blind to their responsibilities. Yet, the separation of powers, even by imperfections, has shown to be more compatible with democracies than hierarchies. Before that separation, the infinite regress problem put God as the top actor to whom monarchs and divine-right rulers reported their accountability. Hence, the mutual checks and balances is a solution to a system where only a distant and divine player was able to solve the infinite regress dilemma of accountability. In that sense, it is worth remembering religious accountability as a practice that embodied asking forgiveness to God to absolve confessions as examples of accountable actions in some religions such as Judaism, Christianism, and Islamism. Yet, even if public leaders invoke divine entities to evaluate their actions, accountability between people, and between public institutions, is the main channel to manage politics. All religious thinking might begin with God, but it also must be worked down to man (people). Faith and tradition are embedded in accountable traditions, but accountability in the realm of politics must be checked down on Earth.

When two or more players collaborate to improve the system of checks and balances, two key aspects are still necessary: internal and external accountability. Internal accountability means that the institution “A” must deliberate with different voices and perspectives to promote the best account. The unilateral conception formulated at the top level of the organization is not sufficient to collect different accounts. In this case, this process involves dialogue and deliberation with persons from the “same” team. Notwithstanding, it is always possible to offer different judgments and justifications considering other people. Thus, on the other hand, external accountability consists of giving an account to a player positioned in a different institution with distant perspectives and motivations: the “other” team. Rhetorically speaking, internal and external accountability define the giver and the receiver of the account. For example, in the case of restorative justice, Braithwaite (2002) has proposed that internal accountability in this field should be checked by the Rule of law. In turn, external accountability means that the Rule of law should be permeable to messages from the general public. For this author, “while deliberative accountability is cheaper and more contextually grounded [...], external accountability is also needed, particularly because of the superior linkage it can offer to the [R]ule of law enacted by democratically elected governments” (Braithwaite, 2002, p. 41). Those practices comprise the consent from the people and the capacity to make decisions based on that consent. Thus, even in the case of restorative justice, accountability involves reshaping the understanding of authority and its legitimacy.

Considering the binomial relationship between authority and legitimacy, several combinations and forms emerge to solve the tension between both concepts. For instance, market and governmental players might take public decisions because they have authority, but the same decisions might lack legitimacy. On the contrary, if those decisions are taken based on responsibility, transparency, answerability, and rule of law, it is said that those decisions “have more legitimacy because they channelize more forms and preferences from the public” . These ingredients are basic steps toward public legitimacy. These steps do not define legitimacy, but their presence (even if one is absent) paves the road to a legitimate decision.

Table 1: Accountability ingredients or principles:

⦁ Responsibility: Duties and missions owed or expected by one player (authority) to the accounter or/and a certain audience by formal and informal means. It allows identifying the actors and the content of the accountable action.

⦁ Transparency: Degree of visibility, exposition, and openness. During the process of accountability, transparency allows the verification of the range and scope (actors, audiences, processes, content, time, and outcomes).

⦁ Answerability: The capacity to demand “answers” and formulate corrections to accountable actor(s) by soft means. It relates to restoring trust and mutual oversight, including checks and balances.

⦁ Enforcement: The capacity to demand “answers” and impose corrections to accountable actor(s) by hard means. It relates to the “Rule of law” and individual rights.

Source: Based on Koppell, 2010; Schedler, 1999.

At the same time, authority is not spontaneous neither is a miraculous practice. Authority to execute a decision of public interest can be taken based on real power to implement a certain decision. One organization can be legitimate before the eyes of civil society but it can lack authority or the capacity to implement an expected decision. Sometimes authority could be deployed by exceptional and normality trends that escape to the Rule of law and a legitimate process. But either by hard or soft means, when it reaches a certain objective, authority always maintains a bargain with legitimacy. As expressed above, authority takes decisions (normative, cognitive, symbolic, pragmatic) considering legitimacy either as a procedure or as a consequence.

In the former case, the authority to execute a decision is permeable to the steps of legitimacy during the adoption and implementation of a public decision. One example is the deliberative consultation that embodies the way in which the public budget can be spent in a city. Legitimacy here redefines the procedures that a public decision encompasses. In the second case, in a consequential approach, authority considers legitimacy as a result rather than as a means to take and implement a public decision. A decision that affects the public can be taken without the steps that reinforce legitimacy but to improve public services or goods. For example, historically, public security and criminal justice issues are scarcely decided with direct participation and deliberation from the public during their procedural steps. Those decisions can be considered as a means to reach ulterior legitimate goals, such as guaranteeing the security of a population, preserving the norms, and maintaining public institutions in a nation. In this case, the results or consequences might justify the decision, even if they were adopted without legitimate procedures. But a consequential perspective of legitimacy is not free of problems, for instance, decisions in criminal justice must not be unchecked during their procedures just because they have good motivations and expect good results.

So far, the legitimacy or legitimation concept in this text relates to the ground on which authority needs to build its foundation. At the same time, legitimacy functions as a teleological horizon (point of destination), a continuous mark in the compass that should be addressed to avoid deviations of authority (disrespect or ignoring the norms), abuse of authority (by coercive and implicit means), the mechanic rule (auto-referential norms dislocated from moral and social grounds), an empty power (tokenistic and superficial adoptions of norms), and the un-fulfillment of moral and ethical bases for a public decision. Legitimacy, therefore, is not enhanced automatically by tradition or charism from the authority.

Deeper legitimacy corresponds to the authorization, the concession of authority to act on behalf of the affected parts. More than complying with the expectations of the majority, a leader, institution, or entity is conceived with greater legitimacy through the accomplishment of policies and actions permeated by the above-mentioned principles, such as responsibility, transparency, answerability, and enforcement. Those principles can be incorporated in the very act of governing via procedural and consequentialist approaches, as mentioned. Legitimacy, then, consists of the normative conditions emanated from the will of the people (i.e. the governed, the communities, citizens affected, etc.) that are expanded and improved by the presence and convergence of those principles. More legitimacy implies that a certain action promotes those principles or facilitates the convergence of most of them. For example, criminal justice is more legitimate if it promotes or is permeable to responsibility, transparency, answerability, and enforcement in a systematic and continuous manner.

In light of the above, authority can be found separated from legitimacy, and vice versa, but their tension and connection are necessary to constitute the dynamics of politics, from microphysics to structural levels of power, from small to major decisions that affect every political community, such as family, neighborhood, region, country, and humanity. Thus, the point here is to recognize that authority and legitimacy are two fronts that are always bargained during the decision and implementation of public decisions.

Therefore, authority and legitimacy are to be connected to formulate and implement concrete actions. Either by procedural steps or by a consequential approach, authority, the capacity to execute a public decision, needs to be related to a base of legitimacy. Meanwhile, legitimacy is not an auto-referential process. Legitimacy gains amplitude and scope if it is attached to an authority that accomplishes it.

In that sense, I postulate that accountability is a connector that links authority and legitimacy. When a player “A” is called to account before a player “B”, it is established a relationship that looks for a justification or a correction regarding the execution of a certain action. In public accountability, authority is called to legitimatize its actions. But the reversal can also be true, a player can be called to account even if it has great legitimacy before the public instead of authority. In that sense, the legitimated player is expected to help in the execution and the delivery of policies redefining the player who concentrates authority. This is the case, for example, of restorative justice approaches in which victims and offenders have a role to complement decisions stemmed from enforcement and criminal law domains. A legitimate player, as the community and the victims, might complement and reinforce the base of legitimacy as well as redefine the decisions stemmed from formal authorities in the judicial system.

In short, accountability is activated to build a connection between authority and legitimacy. Public accountability performs as an intermediate catalyst to link both terms. Accountability is a bargain, a flexible relationship that connects authority and legitimacy to the eyes of the public. This activity can be conducted between two or more social actors, by informal or formal terms. Accountability outcomes are seen in short-term results that affect the initial actors (such as administrative and judicial decisions), or in unforeseen and long-term consequences that affect those and third actors (like cultural and ethics change). Concrete outcomes would depend on the efficiency to demand and to promote accounts.

V. Efficiency of accountability

The performance of public accountability as a connector between authority and sovereignty is a point that also must be discussed. When authority is called to give an account, if that action does not entail more legitimacy, then accountability fails to reach its objective. That is, considering that the main goal of accountability is to put authority and legitimacy in a dialogical relationship, the efficiency of an accountability action will depend on the predisposition of both terms to establish a dialogue. In that sense, I express three situations that will entail different types of accountability performance (see Figure 2).

Considering that accountability efficiency can be expressed in terms of the capability to establish a dialogical relationship between legitimacy (L') and authority (A'), this performance will depend on the asymmetry of power between the player “A” and “B”. I call the asymmetry of power between two players the difference in the capacity to retain, regulate, execute, or block policies between each other. For instance, private corporations, despite the lack of formal authority, can retain more power to regulate policies than a public institution that oversees the market. In that example, there is an asymmetric difference of power between both players to adopt and implement certain decisions in that domain. In that example, the market corporation would concentrate authority (informal) while the state agency would hold legitimacy (to regulate the market). The accountability efficiency, or the capacity to establish a bargain between L' and A', hence, is affected insofar as the player “B” has different capacities of power to demand an account from the player “A”.

Figure 1: Accountability efficiency vs. asymmetry of power.

Source: The author.

In situation I, there is a lower asymmetry of power between “A” and “B”. Both players share almost the same amount of power: the ability to block, regulate, execute, or implement a certain policy decision. In that sense, it is possible to suggest that both have similar authority. This case can be exemplified in the accountability between individuals that share the same rank in their organizations or between institutions from the same hierarchical level in a policy sector. In that case, as there is not a sufficient difference of authority to enforce accountable results, accountability would be transformed into a dead-end road. Even if both players have great public legitimacy, as none of them has more authority to persuade, impose, or canalize accountability outputs, their legitimacy would appear disconnected from authority. This situation of greater legitimacy and poor authority (L' > A'), as mentioned before, implies that the former without the latter can result in an “empty” power. The low asymmetry of power is not bad per se. But even a society of “equals” must consider a player that consolidates equality by different forms of authority. In this situation, hence, the accountability bargain between L' and A' is restricted because of the reduced difference of power between “equals”. In restorative justice domains, this situation would be similar to those cases in which communities take the main initiative to foster alternative solutions beyond the penal system. Yet, this action would be promoted without the efficient participation of official channels that hold authority that in turn can deploy policies and institutional designs to improve the agency of citizens. Thus, in the long term, restorative initiatives might lack systematization or can decay as citizen engagement depends on contingent factors (mobilization, agendas, moments of crisis, resilience, etc.).

In situation II, there is an ideal asymmetry of power between “A” and “B”. This means that accountability outputs (recommendations, sanctions, impositions, and other resolutions) can be adopted by all the players. If “B” has greater power and authority, it can persuade or obligate “A” to modify its action and behavior. In opposition, if “B” has less authority but retains legitimacy, it can persuade and redirect “A” to follow the accountability outputs. As there is not a dramatic difference of power between them, it is possible to suggest that accountability can be performed with sufficient efficiency because of the feasible possibilities that allow it to be transformed into a real connector between L' and A'. Moreover, assuming that political players tend to specialize in one of those fronts and none can have the same level of legitimacy and authority, the tension between L' and A' is never solved, but it is managed. This is because “all approaches to legitimacy set expectations that inevitably conflict with the requirements of authority” . On the other hand, only by deviating (at sometimes) from the requirements of legitimacy can institutions address the contemporary problems of governance and politics. Thus, expectations to solve L' and A' in the same player at the same time are quixotic and self-defeating. Only when there is another player that demands an account and when there is a considerable difference between L' and A', one can speak of an efficient bargain or a dialogic relationship between those values (L' A'). In restorative justice domains, this situation would be similar to those cases in which community initiatives that foster alternative solutions to traditional justice conquer space and carve a position in the penal system. This situation would be promoted since official channels that hold the authority to deploy policies are porous to the agency of citizens. In the long term, restorative initiatives can be better developed and obtain systematization as citizen engagement is not coopted and receives support from institutional actors and vice versa.

In situation III, there is a huge asymmetry of power between the players “A” and “B”. It implies that if player “A” concentrates a greater amount of power and authority, it can execute policies without giving an account to external players. Looking for legitimacy can be a tokenistic exercise of futility. As there is a dramatic difference in power, the player “B” would have poor capabilities to demand an account. Moreover, any attempt of efficient accountability would be short-circuited either by the reluctance of the player “A” to assume accountability outputs or by the fact that the actor “B” cannot bound or persuade the former to improve its real legitimacy. One example is when security agencies concentrate huge amounts of discretional power, especially during authoritarian regimes. Any attempt to turn them accountable would obtain tiny results insofar those agencies can neglect information because of their last word to protect their roles, or because the accountant has no discretional power to demand real changes from security institutions. This situation turns more dangerous as more authoritarian a certain institution becomes. Totalitarian regimes have shown that the external accountability of the “Big Brother” is an illusion insofar as they tend to concentrate power into an institutional apparatus of authority (L' < A'). Thus, one of the first measures adopted by new democracies after authoritarian regimes consisted of devolving discretional powers from security agencies to civilian institutions (i.e. from Francoist military-centered justice to civilian justice based on fundamental guarantees to citizens). To improve the accountability efficiency in transitional scenarios it is necessary to retire power from institutional-centered designs and think of new forms in which former powerful actors can start to give accounts of their actions. Otherwise, official bureaucracies might coopt or just forget to work alongside community sectors and citizen associations affected by specific issues, as in the case of forms of restorative justice that offer alternative outcomes to top-down criminal law decisions. Those examples are attempts to restrain the asymmetry of power between state-centered institutions and the rest of the society, but much more can be done to turn justice more accountable to the people, managing the authoritarian impetus from people that just “follow orders” and forget other players. This impetus should also be redirected in cases when people commit excesses or act through offenses against the community. In short, the idea is to transform situation III into situation II because excessive authority, from different institutions and social domains, reminds us that authority without legitimacy short-circuits the bargain between both values and undermines the efficiency of accountability.

By the analysis of the figure, accountability is best performed in the context of asymmetric power. But a low or excessive difference of power between actors “A” and “B” is refractory to ideal accountability performance. Accountability is related to a situation of “quasi-equals”; it is an idea that enhances democracy and democratization. That is, this value is one of the main ingredients that every democratic process must promote. Not only because it establishes a strong relationship between authority and legitimacy, but because it has the potential to be linked with other democratic procedures. For instance, as argued by Coleman & Blumler , some crucial points must be drawn in every democratic effort. Those points are: a) regular, free and fair elections, involving competition between more than one party, b) The rule of law, under which all citizens are subject to a common jurisdiction, c) Freedom to speak, assemble and publish, and for opposition to the government of the day to organize without fear of intimidation, d) Government accountability to the public and responsiveness to public concerns, e) The existence of a civil society sector which is free from control by either the state or the market. Although the list may continue because there is no intention to define what democracy is, accountability is important insofar as it can be linked with the points in the list. From elections, the rule of law, and public policies, accountability closes the circle that connects citizens and institutions. By closing the circle, I think in legitimizing public action and transforming authority to avoid unilateral decisions and mechanical institutional designs. Politics should not be like automatic machines programmed to elect politicians, choose assets, and deliver services. Politics is permeated by inconstant roles, several players, and mutable scenarios that demand considering the public at every time, not only during the electoral process. In that sense, accountability can fulfill the promises of a stronger democracy, improving regular administrative procedures, and guiding meta-political directions (where does democracy lead us?) in the face of a changing contingency.

VI. The limits of accountability

Accountability cannot be used to describe the mere official discourse to voters, or the devolution of authority from the central government to local communities. As mentioned, accountability increases insofar as there are more chances of one player to demand explanation, justifications, and impose corrections to the other one. But no institution serves only one purpose or goal, and, therefore, no institution should be expected to be responsive to only one form of accountability regime. One single actor might give multiple accounts to several players and at different times. Accountability is related to repetition and is a temporal sequence instead of an isolated practice. Thus, accountability can be studied from a historical perspective. In that sense, three problems can be identified when accountability is performed several times during a certain period: First, accountability can become a symbolic practice that loses real efficiency. Second, accountability might turn into a witch-hunting campaign instead of promoting civic values. Third, accountability might be confused with transparency and vice versa.

In the first problem, repetition can transform accountability into a simple protocol, which is valued according to its procedures rather than to substantial outputs and results. It was said that accountability is a relational concept, but in some cases, it can be misunderstood as a final goal. When accountability is performed in regular procedures or protocols, Gunther Teubner has argued that many institutions face what he called the “regulatory trilemma”. In Teubner, institutions need to be simultaneously coherent (to the Rule of law or regulatory norm), effective (to accomplish the norms), and responsive (which means that they must be opened to the influence of social demands and cultural changes) (in Roth-Isigkeit, 2018). The trilemma for Teubner is that virtually any attempt to reinforce one of these demands works to limit the capacity of the regulatory institution to satisfy another. It is difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish satisfactorily the three points in the triangle. In this case, accountability can become a tokenistic exercise if one institution chooses to reinforce only one part of the triangle or when it fails to perform in at least two parts.

In the second accountability problem, political polarizations between accountants and accounters are expected, but when they trench their positions, accountability practices could be transformed into a tribunal that seeks to prosecute “witches” everywhere. If there is a simple motivation to punish or defeat political adversaries, accountability can be performed in a culture of suspicion and accusation; a culture in which people explain themselves either with fear or intending to make a favor to the eyes of supervisors and correctors. Moreover, excessive concern to bring efficiency to accountability can produce backfire effects. For example, when accountants demand to justify every political procedure, “every penny spent” for the sake of economics and administrative efficiency, the result can be misleading. In the “New Public Management” paradigm, the system of accountability on which public officials have to demonstrate and justify extensively many bureaucratic procedures turns out paralyzing what was supposed to be a flexible and efficient policy. Public institutions need to offer services by producing larger amounts of information and following several rules, but an environment of excessive demand for “efficiency” and distrust reinforces an idea of total inefficiency and suspicion. The more this logic comes to be taken for granted to run public management and everything else, the more suspicious everyone is. “People must be up to do something, [...] because the system constantly accuses them of being up to something” . As a consequence, when distrust reigns and people are implicitly accused of wrong-doing, they become less motivated to cooperate in the activity in respect of which they are accused. Possibly they become more inclined to mask wrong-doing and react defensively for fear of what will become if they reveal their mistakes. In short, tons of accountability in a culture of excessive efficiency and suspicion undermine the ingredients (see table 1) used to tolerate political mistakes and to correct actors/institutions. Finally, considering that accountability evolves deliberation, in this culture, people are not encouraged to explain themselves honestly for fear that every little deviation will cause punishment.

The third accountability problem happens when this is mistaken with transparency. As mentioned above, accountability is a relation that aims to connect authority with legitimacy. In turn, legitimacy can involve representation, participation, transparency, and rule of law. In that sense, transparency is just one ingredient that allows public accountability. It is plausible that certain accountability actions, like criminal investigations, are performed without great levels of transparency due to security safeguards. But a reduced level of transparency should not be a death-end road. Low transparency must not be a barrier to accountability performance insofar as there are other ingredients that can be mobilized to improve this action. From the perspective of enforcement and justice practitioners, one accountability attempt must not be confused with transparency to snoop around official secrets. There are ways to turn secret issues accountable by distinct methods, but again, the prerogative of authority does not excuse someone of hiding and classifying information with total discretion. Total opaqueness is an extreme position that must be avoided. On the other hand, total transparency is an illusion that embodies perils. To achieve freedom of information, as a requirement in political management, in business administration, in the regulation of markets, or in social responsibility guidelines, transparency is the key to the good functioning of all these human initiatives. The problem is that while stronger political groups can work to mask actions and keep official secrets, there is an uninterrupted interconnected exhibition on the side of the weaker groups –the normal citizens. This bottom “total transparency” that only unveils one side is explained by Byung-Chul Han in the Society of Transparence. For Han, the ultimate result of total transparency is anthropological: more and more transparency enhances distrust, which in turn enhances greater surveillance imposed to cover the offer and the demand for transparency. According to him, the society of control has a subject that appears in total transparency, not by external coercion, but by the need in herself (the “normal” individual) to renounce private and intimate spheres in order to exhibit oneself without shame. Total transparency endangers trust insofar as this value depends on not knowing the completeness of other persons, on some layers of opaqueness; trust means to build a positive relationship with other ones that are not totally transparent. When total transparency (between bottom citizens) dominates, there is no room for trust. “The society of transparency is a society of mistrust and suspicion”. To Han, as trust disappears, individuals start to live in a society of social control and lose liberty.

Considering the problems of accountability, it is essential to express that public accountability, on the other hand, is a modest concept. As stated by Schedler and O'Donnell (1998), accountability only is performed as a relational concept, rather than a substitutive action. That is, accountability seeks to establish a connection between two or more players, aiming different results over those players. Traditionally, accountability does not seek to abolish one player or radically transform the relationship between them. When citizen commissions promote more accounts from justice services, the former does not seek to replenish or abolish the whole judicial system, at least not in the short term. Accountability nature is reformative instead of disruptive. However, it does not mean that accountability can redefine institutional designs and deeply constrain power in the long term. The virtue of accountability resides in its modest and auxiliary nature. By restraining concrete actors, accountability reshapes power and bargain the forms to its distribution, execution, and implementation. We must be skeptical about accountability promises and outputs. Yet, accountability must not be regarded as a mere appendage to transform politics. Learning from failures in accountability experiences should be of importance for every political project that leads with legitimacy and authority. Even radical aspirations and revolutionary projects must put more attention to this practice as past attempts have shown that radical changes also failed to bring legitimacy and accountability after revolutions. After exceptional measures to transform politics, governmentality measures failed to deploy a connection between the bureaucratic apparatus and the people. In the name of a better future, authority appeared disconnected from legitimacy as a constant process that needs to be implemented and demonstrated every day. In those cases, authority understood legitimacy as an automatic consequence that justified the centralization of power to oversee everybody. For example, distant from Rose Luxemburg affirmation that Marxism should have consisted of a “continuous experience”, the experimentum mundi, with a common commitment to construct socialism; real socialist regimes became rigid bureaucracies with political police forces and excessive justice concentrated in parties with “one thousand eyes”. Unfortunately, current trends attached to western liberal politics can also reach the same destination: authority disconnected from legitimacy, unidirectional justice based on punishment, and securitization that might be ubiquitous and pathological. Thus, it is difficult to imagine and dream about better futures (even if meta-narratives seem to have collapsed) if there is no place for the principles of accountability in the politics of tomorrow.

Finally, if efficient and good accountability actions belong to the realm of dreams but also of possibilities, it implies never giving up on responsibility, transparency, answerability, and enforcement as dimensions attached to politics. Accountability is an exhaustive practice of turning someone accountable, it is the means, not the ending goal to redefine and alter politics. Accountability might consist of a relationship that aims to control power asymmetries that seem uncontrollable. Authority as power can become abusive and commit excesses. However, accountability strength stems from its initial modest promise; it can serve as the achievement of unreachable dreams by incremental paths, or to be more realistic, it can avoid reachable nightmares by redefining everyday tiny political practices.

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