identifiable endpoint, and added public administrators’ responsibility “to hear otherwise silent voices in the process by which the public interest is defined.” The author also identified a public service duty to weigh ethically future needs and mutual interests through “the ethical analysis and democratic process” against current uses and private interests in conventional claims on the public interest (Lewis, 2006: 699).
Thomson’s (2010) idea of “democratic trusteeship” was presented from a political angle, but the author still made a significant point that related specifically to governmental officials. Thomson (2010: 24-25) suggested that governments should be required (1) to implement audit mechanisms, which include information on “the democratic capacities of future citizens,” and (2) to establish a contingency fund, which compensates for “the damage done to the democratic process.” He also suggested pre-decision democratic processes, such as “suspensive interventions, age-differentiated political rights, and constitutional conventions,” which enable public administrators to deliberate on “the democratic capacities of future sovereigns” (Thomson, 2010: 23-26).
The figure below summarizes the practical implications for public/democratic accountability in the long-term and suggests directions for further research. Future citizens are placed on the horizontal axis, and the role of accountability is placed on the vertical axis. Accountability-as-mechanism is the technical role of accountability composed of some specific institutional mechanisms or policy instruments. Accountability-as-setting is an alternative dimension of such mechanisms that provides the overarching moral, normative setting for having enhanced accountability.
5. CONCLUSION
In this paper, I made a normative argument that the concept of public administrators’ financial accountability should have an extended time dimension. To support my argument, I conducted a systematic literature review on five primary topics, which include accountability, financial accountability, managerial accountability, public accountability, and democratic accountability. The review on the extant research suggests the existence of “accountability myopia.” The time dimension and future citizens were neglected in conceptual frameworks for accountability and analytical frameworks for democratic accountability, respectively. Through this critical evaluation of the gaps between theory and practice, the paper makes some pr
eliminary recommendations that involve integrating the two neglected
