John Emmanuel Villanueva PA 209 – Prof.

Lizan Perante-Calina
09-26372 (MPA) September 3, 2019

Bibliographical Essay: Accountability as the most important virtue for civil servants
Given my six-year stint as a civil servant, there is a host of virtues that are of paramount
importance to me in carrying out my functions and duties: accountability, integrity, honesty,
prudence, and wisdom. But if I am to choose only one of those, I will confidently elect
accountability as the most important virtue for me and my colleagues in the civil service.
Accountability: Definition
As a concept, accountability is a universally accepted standard in Public Administration,
which, interestingly, has no universally accepted specific definition—its meaning and
application differ from one individual to another and/or from one institution to another (Bovens,
2010, 2009; Kakumba, 2008). It is often referred to as a synonym of or mentioned alongside
various loosely characterized political desiderata such as integrity, transparency, responsibility,
liability, and responsiveness (Bovens, 2010, 2009; Dubnick, 2007; Behn, 2001; Mulgan 2000).
For the purpose of this essay, I adopt the definition offered by Bovens (2010, p. 949):
accountability as “a virtue, as a positive feature of organizations or officials. Accountability in
this very broad sense is used to positively qualify a state of affairs or the performance of an actor.
It comes close to ‘responsiveness’ and ‘a sense of responsibility’, a willingness to act in a
transparent, fair, and equitable way. Accountability, used in this more active sense of virtue,
refers to substantive norms for the behavior of actors.”
Accountability: Why is it the most important?
Without looking into the extant literature, I believe that it is the most important virtue for
public servants because embracing it brings to fore the application of other essential virtues in
practice. If a public manager espouses accountability, he/she upholds: (1) integrity—doing the
right thing regardless of recognition (or lack thereof) and inconvenience; (2) responsibility—to
be accountable means taking full responsibility for a task at hand; (3) prudence—in taking full
responsibility of the task at hand, public managers need to exercise prudence in decision making;
and (4) transparency/responsiveness—civil servants are “held accountable” by their superiors
and stakeholders of their respective agencies so they ought to be transparent in relevant processes
undertaken and be responsive to their inputs and comments. A quick scan of related literature
supports this belief. For instance, Bovens (2009) lists five (5) functions of accountability which
embodies its importance to the public: democratic control, integrity, improvement, legitimacy,
and catharsis. Meanwhile, Aucoin and Heintzman (2000) talk about accountability in light of a
transparent, responsible, and responsive governance that bridges the governed (citizens) and the
government.
Accountability: Personal experience as a civil servant
My personal experience as a civil servant with respect to accountability can be
summarized into two (2) polar opposite accounts: a quite disappointing experience in a previous
workplace1 and an inspiring experience (so far) in my current office, the Department of Labor
and Employment-Institute for Labor Studies (DOLE-ILS).
On the one hand, accountability as liability (Bovens, 2009) is the overarching theme
relevant to my first experience. Recalling my past, I cannot agree more with Behn (2001, p. 3)
who enunciated that many public managers/civil servants “recognize that if someone is holding
them accountable, two things can happen: When they do something good, nothing happens. But
when they screw up, all hell can break loose.” This is exactly how I felt back then. I don’t get
the credit I feel I deserve whenever my output (if I wrote it entirely) or contribution (e.g., in staff
report) is recognized—simply because my name is not reflected in the output, only the
institution’s name (e.g. industry briefer) and/or the head of agency’s name (e.g., staff report).
Meanwhile, in group outputs such as the drafting of staff report, we, the technical staff, usually
bear the brunt of the head of agency’s ire whenever something is amiss with the report—even if
those items are suggestions/revisions that our superiors (e.g., Assistant Chief, Chief, Director)
instructed us to incorporate. They simply would not take responsibility for their actions/inputs
in the report when the head of the agency asks during collegial meetings. However, when a
portion of or the entire staff report was commended by the head of agency, some of our superiors
take credit for it fully—without sharing it to us, the technical staff, who worked day and night
for the report. Apparently, the notion “give credit where credit is due” does not exist in their
vocabulary. Hood (2013) will no longer be surprised with this scenario, as he emphasized that
public managers may be involved with various strategies (e.g., presentational, agency, and/or
policy) to minimize or totally avoid blame in case of failure and maximize credits in case of
success.
On the other hand, my experience on accountability with ILS is a breath of fresh air. ILS
is the policy research and advocacy arm of DOLE, and my function there is mainly as policy
researcher. My own appreciation of accountability in terms of outputs was observed in my
current workplace—I get the credit I deserve for a job well done inasmuch as I have to take
responsibility for any shortcoming/mistake. Institutionally speaking, this is made possible
through indicating the name of the technical staff who produced the technical knowledge product
(e.g., policy brief, industry brief, working paper/full-blown research, issue paper, etc.). Likewise,
ILS management shares credit with the concerned technical staff whenever an output emanating
from ILS receives recognition from DOLE Senior Officials and/or tripartite stakeholders.
Concluding remarks: Accountability as both asset and liability

My wishful thinking is that one day, civil servants will no longer shun accountability,
thinking that it is nothing short of a punishment (Behn, 2001). But rather, embrace the concept
whole-heartedly as it is a means to gain recognition for a job well done, inasmuch as it is a
mechanism to uphold responsibility and responsiveness.

1 For confidentiality, the government agency will not be identified/named in this essay.
References

Aucoin, P., & Heintzman, R. (2000). The dialectics of accountability for performance in public
management reform. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 66(1), 45–55. doi:
10.1177/0020852300661005

Behn, R. (2001). Rethinking democratic accountability. Washington, DC: Brookings

Institution Press.

Bovens, M. (2010). Two concepts of accountability: Accountability as a virtue and as a

mechanism. West European Politics, 33(5), 946–967. doi:
10.1080/01402382.2010.486119
Bovens, M. (2009). Public accountability. In E. Ferlie, L. Lynn Jr., & C. Pollitt (Eds.), The
Oxford Handbook of Public Management. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dubnick, M. (2007). Situating accountability: Seeking salvation for the core concept
of modern governance. Retrieved from
http://mjdubnick.dubnick.net/papersrw/2007/situacct.pdf

Hood, C. (2013). The blame game: Spin, bureaucracy, and self-preservation in government.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kakumba, U. (2008). External control systems in the enhancement of accountability in local
government: The case of Uganda (Doctoral dissertation). University of Pretoria, South
Africa.
Mulgan, R. (2000). Accountability: An ever expanding concept? Public Administration,
78(3), 555–573. doi: 10.1111/1467-9299.00218