ACCOUNTABILITY HAS LONG been a concern of democratic theorists.

Yet account -

ability’' s perceived function and value have varied across democratic frame-
works and democratic contexts. One might even construct a history of
democratic theory according to the different ways that accountability has been
interpreted , valued , and configured , from Herodotus to contemporary deliber-
ative democrats. Within modern discussions , democratic accountability is typ-
ically associated with representative democracy and elections. With this in
mind , I turn , in this chapter, to a period of great political transformation in
which representative democracy was being heavily debated and institutional -
ized. I examine the role of democratic accountability as conceived in the
debates between the Federalists and Anti- Federalists over the creation and
ratification of the U .S. Constitution.
Few discussions of political accountability in the canon of democratic
theory are as rich as those found in the ratification debates. There, at a time
before political parties and when nation -states were still emerging as the pre-
dominant form of geopolitical organization , the principle of popular sover-
eignty was being fiercely defended even as liberal arguments about commerce
and limited government were gathering strength. These debates not only
resulted in a new form of political constitution ; they also inaugurated a new
body of democratic theory revolving around the prospect that popular sover-
eignty can be made compatible with an extended republic. Accountability was
an indispensable concept in this theorizing and a central element of the
resulting constitution. The ratification debates illustrate how the realization of
— —
democratic or more precisely “ republican” standards of accountability
depends greatly upon the particularities of institutional design .
Not unlike the present political context , in which sovereignty, pop -
 -
globalization , the Federalists and Anti Federalists were debating in a
context of major institutional transformation , expansion , and political
reconstitution . Sharing a political horizon shaped by the question of
whether popular sovereignty could be compatible with an expanded po -
litical sphere , both groups of authors embraced popular accountability
as a standard of government legitimacy. Still , their respective approaches
to accountability differed significantly, reflecting differing outlooks on
the perils of concentrated power, on the role of citizen participation , and
on the need for energetic and effective government. Out of their debates
—
comes a picture of two visions of democratic or rather republican — ac -
countability. One , the Federalist vision , emphasized the importance of
concentrating governmental power and of keeping citizens at some
distance from government both for the sake of well - managed govern -
ment and so that accountability mechanisms might be effective. The
other, Anti - Federalist , vision highlighted the dangers of concentrated
power and pointed to how republican accountability depends upon the
active and meaningful participation of citizens , a type of participation
that is undermined when government grows distant . Both perspectives
illuminate dangers and possibilities for realizing accountable and legiti -
mate governance. Together, they complicate simple oppositions between
government accountability and government efficacy.
 Before proceeding further, 1 wish to make two caveats regarding my use
of language across historical periods. In the eighteenth century, democracy
was generally associated with the republics of ancient Greece and Renais-
sance Italy, and not with what we today call representative democracy. Cor -
respondingly, neither the Federalists nor the Anti - Federalists would have
described themselves as advocating “ democratic” accountability, even if we
would describe them in that language today. For the sake of historical accu -
racy and to avoid confusion , in this chapter, I hereafter restrict my use of
the word democratic to the sort of direct democratic practices associated
with those early republics. I will use the more historically appropriate word
republican, where , today, we might use the word democratic , as reflecting the
principle that governmental legitimacy is derived from the authority of the
people, whether directly or through representation . In subsequent chapters
I will revert back to the more contemporary generalized understanding of
the term democratic. Even though my use of republican in this chapter avoids
problems of anachronism , it does carry dangers of its own , especially given
that the concept of " republic” was itself hotly contested in the late eigh -
teenth and early nineteenth centuries.I do not believe it is possible to com -
pletely avoid the ambiguities that stem from this shifting conceptual and
linguistic terrain. I will , however, strive to be consistent in my own usage
so as to avoid further confusion .
My second caveat relates to the language of “ accountability.” Eighteenth -
century Americans used many words to describe what we would typically
characterize as accountable government . The semantic barriers between
words like accountable , responsible , answerable , punishable , and amenable were
much more fluid than they are today. The specific word accountability was, in
fact , scarcely used in the ratification debates. This observation needs to be
qualified with the additional observation that — at least according to the Oxford
—
English Dictionary the word was just appearing in the English language
around the same time. The ratification debates may actually have helped
introduce the word . For these reasons , some linguistic imprecision is un -
avoidable in my discussion of the ratification debates. I do not believe, how -
ever, that this presents an intractable problem for my project. The etymology
of the word accountability does not exhaust the history of the concept . Thus,
this chapter draws upon references to the specific words accountability and
accountable , as well as upon references to related words when they are used in
a manner reflective of the concept of accountability as it is commonly under-
stood today. Central to this understanding is the idea that to be accountable is
to have to answer for one’s actions and to face sanctions depending upon that
answer and one’s performance.
Representative Government and Accountability
In contemporary politics , anxiety over accountability deficits and the loss of
democratic control is being spurred by the shifting scale and distances of
political power. Globalization technologies have shortened some distances —
it is easier now than ever before to communicate and travel across vast phys-
ical space. This new capacity for “ action at a distance” has also meant that
many of the forces shaping society cut across conventional political bound -
aries. Many government decisions that once would have been limited to local
or national contexts now appear to take place on a grand , international scale,
far removed from the local communities who feel their effects. Citizens in
Europe bemoan the unaccountability of EU technocrats. Local activists pro-
test the unaccountability of the IMF and World Bank. However ill - or well -
conceived they may be, many of these anxieties and concerns posed by the
expanded scale of governance today have parallels in eighteenth -century
debates over representative government.
The principle that government should be accountable to citizens was vital
to the United States founding generation’s effort to reconcile republican
principles with the need to concentrate governing power. Representative gov-
ernment may be a way to make popular sovereignty compatible with a large
society, but the distances created when authority is delegated to representa -
tives also makes popular sovereignty a problem. Put simply, representation
created gaps between the sovereign people and the drafters of their laws.
Among other things, the relationship between representative and repre-
sented is constituted by: spatial gaps characterized by the distance between
the locales in which people live and the location of government ; scalar gaps
characterized by the proportion of representatives to constituents; temporal
gaps characterized by the time separating the authorization of a representa -
tive in the past and his present and future behavior in office, as well as by the
time separating the decisions of a representative and the longer term conse-
quences of those decisions ; epistemological gaps characterized by constitu -
ents’ ignorance about what the representative is doing and the representative’s
ignorance about the needs , interests , and desires of constituents ; competence
gaps characterized by differences in governing capabilities; and identity gaps
characterized by differences in class , character, and experience. See Table 1.1.
All these gaps could just as easily be used to describe the challenges of repre-
sentative government today. These gaps create opportunities for representa -
tives to abuse their power and to create laws transgressing the liberty of the
very citizens who authorized them . The founding generation regarded gov-
ernmental accountability to the "great body of the people” as a principal way
to protect against such abuses of power. They perceived governments that
lack such accountability to citizens as invitations to tyranny.
 Nevertheless, neither the Federalists nor the Anti - Federalists sought to
use accountability to establish a system of direct popular rule along the
lines of then -existing democratic orthodoxy. Rather, they sought to use it as
part of a system of popular control in which potential abuses of governmen -
tal power could be avoided by making government dependent upon citi -
zens , even as government was afforded degrees of autonomy so that it
might govern effectively. Popular accountability was seen as a way to gen -
erate a further connection to the people and to introduce some constraints on
government power without completely overriding the governing authority
of policy makers. For both the Federalists and the Anti - Federalists , account -
ability served , not to completely collapse the gaps between rulers and ruled ,
but to regulate them . Still , accountability can be implemented in many dif-
ferent ways with very different effects. The ratification debates can be
viewed as a struggle over how the aforementioned gaps would be regulated
and how accountability would be configured around degrees of dependence
and autonomy.
 Table I .I Gaps of Representation

Spatial gaps Governmental decision making takes place at a

distance from the locales in which constituents live

Scalar gaps The distance created between individual constituents

and their representatives by the fact that representa -
tives are expected to serve multiple constituents

Temporal gaps The time separating the moment of authorization

from the representative's present and future
behavior in office, and the time separating governing
decisions from the full consequences of those
decisions

Epistemological gaps Constituents have limited ability to acquire knowl -

edge about what the representative is doing.
Conversely, representatives have limited ability to
acquire knowledge about the needs , interests , and
desires of constituents

Competence gaps Representatives have different governing capabilities

than constituents

Identity gaps Representatives have different class, gender, religion ,

ethnicity than constituents
The Federalists and the Challenges of
Accountable Government
The Federalist writings include works by a broad range of authors supportive
of the proposed constitution. Although the Federalist perspective is most
often associated with the essays by “ Publius” collected in The Federalist , it is
important to acknowledge that these essays do not exhaust the corpus of Fed -
eralist writings , nor do they cover the entire range of Federalist views on the
Constitution. The Federalist authors did not speak with one voice or with one
set of concerns. This diversity of opinion notwithstanding, and even though
exceptions certainly exist , one can identify clear patterns in their writings on
accountable government.
 For the Federalists , the issue of governmental accountability turned both
on the question of how to make accountability mechanisms procedurally ef-
fective and on the question of how to make government good . More than the
Anti - Federalists , the Federalists argued from the perspective of power. They
used a concern over “ stability, ” “ energy, ” and “ efficiency ” in government to
justify concentrating power in the hands of officials and to resist efforts by the
Anti - Federalists to tighten the dependence of government on local commu-
nities. To be sure, the Federalists accepted the republican principle that gov-
ernment should be accountable to the people , but they also believed that the
zeal of “ jealous republicans" needed to be checked , lest it generate onerous
obligations of accountability that would hamper good government. Such ob-
servations about the Federalists’ focus on good government should be familiar
to students of this period . What has drawn less attention , however, is that the
Federalists' rationale for concentrating power and distancing citizens also in -
cluded claims about how to enhance government’s accountability to citizens.
They tended to perceive centralized authority and enlarged distances between
citizens and the government as necessary to avoid muddled and ineffective
forms of accountability that would abet abuses of power. Their defense of the
Constitution thus involved a two- pronged critique of decentralized account-
ability arrangements. Such arrangements were bad for good government , and
they were bad for accountability.
 One of the ways Federalist authors demonstrated the problems with
decentralized and participatory forms of accountability was by distinguishing
their republic from earlier models of direct democracy ( hereafter “ democ-
racy " ) . Madison famously characterized these democracies as “ spectacles of
turbulence and contention ” perishing under the “ mortal disease" of “ insta -
bility, injustice, and confusion. ” Fisher Ames described democracy as “ a vol -
cano , which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction.” Noah
Webster described democracy as “ inconsistent with the peace of society, and
the rights of freemen. ” Similarly, Hamilton heaped scorn on the Greek and
Italian republics:

It is impossible to read the history of the petty Republics of Greece and

Italy, without feeling sensations of horror and disgust at the distrac-
tions with which they were continuously agitated , and at the rapid suc-
cession of revolutions, by which they were kept in a state of perpetual
vibration , between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy.

For Hamilton , the "science of politics” provided powerful means " by which the
excellencies of republican government may be retained and its imperfections
lessened or avoided .” These “ imperfections” that Hamilton described are im -
perfections in political order. The Greek and Italian republics were imperfect
because they were fragile and disorderly. The Constitution , by contrast , was
seen as an improvement precisely because it would limit the chaotic excesses
of participatory politics found in small republics and , by extension , in the
decentralized power arrangements of the Articles of Confederation . Even
though the passages quoted earlier do not use the language of accountability
per se, they do illustrate the Federalists' general anxiety about citizen partici-
pation . This anxiety and orientation shaped their views of the proper function
of accountability in a republic. Participatory forms of democratic account-
ability introduce instability into a regime. The ability of diverse , small commu -
nities to hold government to account generates the very sort of agitation
Hamilton and others regarded with horror and disgust . Part of what the sci-
ence of politics then offered was a way to rationalize government account-
ability by pacifying the “ distractions" and “ perpetual vibrations” of an active
citizenry. I will argue later for a view of democratic accountability that is more
open to the fragility of democratic order and that regards certain forms of
disruption as important ways to deepen and extend democratic principles.
Here, however, I merely observe that , for the Federalists , the task was to build
republican institutions of accountability that not only control government but
also control citizens.
 In addition to perceiving popular accountability as a potential threat to
effective and orderly rule, the Federalists , and Madison in particular, also
expressed concern that democracy per se might actually be in tension with
governmental accountability. Not only is democratic accountability bad for
governance , but democracy may be bad for accountability. For Madison , the
communication and concerted action of citizens can easily lead to majorities
that are all too willing to freely sacrifice their fellows. History has shown how
democratic ideology provides cover for unaccountable majorities. In the name
—
of the demos the final authority to whom all other concentrations of power
—
are presumably accountable majority factions were able to tyrannize over
minorities without having to account for their actions. In short , a government
accountable to the demos acting collectively would not be accountable to the demos
at all . Instead , it wouldbe beholden to factional interests. It is difficult to over-
estimate the importance of this point for the Federalist position . The Federal -
ists were deeply concerned about the way efforts to bring government close to
the people might only result in drawing government into the influence of
“ factions , ” which , partisan by nature, would fail to serve the interests of the
people as a whole. Such partisanship , they believed , was more likely to take
hold at the local or state level than at the federal level. The problem with
popular accountability was not just its tendency toward disorder but also the
potential for the public interest to be thwarted . The principal challenge was
not one of getting the demos to act , but rather one of ensuring that the demos
was properly constituted . It was the challenge of ensuring government was
accountable to the true demos and not to factions thereof. Counterintuitively,
they believed the best way to realize government’s accountability to the people
was by limiting the occasions in which the people act collectively.
Had they been seeking to approximate democracy, the Federalists might
have sought , wherever possible, to draw citizens further into governmental
accountability processes. For them , however, republican government was not
meant to approximate democracy; on the contrary, it was meant to improve
upon democracy with a vision of limited citizen participation in which sover-
eignty is retained by the people but exercised at a safe distance From this
perspective , the value of accountability derives as much from the way it limits
citizen involvement in government as it does from the way it draws govern-
ment closer to the people.
The Unaccountable British Monarchy
With their push for a stronger national government rubbing against the grain
of still - prevalent antimonarchical revolutionary sentiment , leading Federalist
authors like Madison and Hamilton were eager to distance themselves from
the former British rulers. Shrewdly, they used the unaccountability of the
British monarchy, with its tendency toward “ aristocratic usurpations and tyr-
anny, ” as a foil to illustrate the accountability inherent in the proposed consti-
tution . In opposition to the unaccountable British system , the Federalists
characterized the Constitution as embodying a republican standard in which
“ every magistrate ought to be personally responsible for his behavior in office”
and where "dependence on the people” was “ the primary control on the gov-
ernment.” With regard to the legislative branch , Madison , for example,
referred to the British House of Lords as “ an hereditary assembly of opulent
nobles. ” He observed further that , to the extent that there was a system of
electoral accountability in place at all in the House of Commons , it pertained
to merely a fraction of government , was plagued by corruption , and was com -
posed of officials elected only at large intervals in a very great proportion by a
very small proportion of the people. With regard to the executive branch , the
more authoritarian Hamilton contrasted the presidential model with the Brit-
ish monarch , whom he portrayed as a perpetual magistrate, “ unaccountable
for his administration , and his person sacred.” Under the monarchy, it was
citizens and councilors who were accountable to the king, not the other way
around . In the United States , by contrast , the president would face elections
and be held to account for his behavior.
Even as they used the British regime as a foil to affirm the importance of
accountable government , these authors ultimately did so in a fashion that
worked to further centralize federal power and to distance citizens from the
execution of government. In their rationales , both Madison and Hamilton
emphasized good government and the need for effective accountability. Madi-
son used his characterization of the unaccountable House of Lords , not to
illustrate the need for more dependence on citizens , but rather to rebut Anti-
Federalist arguments that the Senate would be dangerously far removed from
popular accountability. He made his case by pointing to the dangers of an
overly responsive legislature: If even the hereditary House of Lords was over-
—
whelmed by the populism of the House of Commons and the House of
—
Commons was only marginally responsible to citizens just imagine how
much weaker the elected Senate would be in the face of the more thoroughly
populist House of Representatives!
 For his part, Hamilton used his observations about the unaccountable
British monarch not to warn about the dangers of centralized power, but
rather to argue against a plural executive and to emphasize the importance of
having an energetic executive , which he regarded as “ a leading character in
the definition of good government." Diffusing power across an executive
council would sap energy from the executive while obstructing executive ac-
countability. For Hamilton , the centralization of power was not anathema to
republican accountability; it was, rather, republican accountability 's condition
of possibility. In the British system , an executive council served an important
accountability function: Its responsibility to Parliament partially offset the im -
punity of the chief executive. In the American republic, by contrast , there
was no unaccountable monarch. In this context , spreading executive power
across an executive council would impede accountability by obscuring indi -
vidual responsibility for executive decisions. For Hamilton , it was only by fur-
ther concentrating power in the hands of a single executive that responsibility
could be clearly demarcated and blame could be readily assigned .

Leadership, Electoral Accountability,

and Identity Gaps
Elections have a special place in these accountability debates. As is often
the case today, elections were regarded as the signature vehicle of account -
ability in representative government. Both the Federalists and Anti- Federalists
believed electoral accountability at regular intervals was indispensable for
republican government and crucial for preventing and correcting poor and
corrupt rule. As Madison wrote,

The elective mode of obtaining rulers is the characteristic policy of

republican government. The means relied on in this form of govern -
ment for preventing their degeneracy are numerous and various. The
most effectual one, is such a limitation of the term of appointments as
will maintain a proper responsibility to the people.

The vulnerability of elected officials at the ballot box helps to foster a “ depen -
dence" and “ sympathy ” with the people. In short , the prospect of being held
accountable at the ballot box in the future disciplines representatives to “ habit-
ually recollect" their dependence upon the people. As Madison continued ,

Before the sentiments impressed on their minds by the mode of their

elevation can be effaced by the exercise of power, they will be com -
pelled to anticipate the moment when their power is to cease , when
their exercise of it is to be reviewed , and when they must descend to
the level from which they were raised ; there forever to remain unless a
faithful discharge of their trust shall have established their title to a
renewal of it.
This "dislocability, ” as Bentham later called it , of representatives presumably
helps to ensure that the public interest does not stray too far from the legisla -
tors’ minds The Federalists and Anti - Federalists disagreed , however, about
how tightly controlled representatives should be, as well as about whether
elections alone would be sufficient to bring the necessary dependence about.
Elections serve a double function . On the one hand , they authorize leaders
to rule with some autonomy. On the other, they hold leaders to account and
foster dependence on citizens. In their effort to strike a balance between au -
tonomy and dependence , the Federalists clearly pushed for greater autonomy.
The first aim of every political constitution , Madison argued , ought to be "to
obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern , and most virtue
to pursue , the common good of the society. ” While he and the other founders
clearly also saw the need for “ effectual precautions” for “ keeping them [ rulers)
virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust , ” those precautions
come , notably, second Too much emphasis on accountability and the depen -
dence it creates would result in too little emphasis on good government and
the selection of high -quality leaders.
 Even as they downplayed the importance of popular accountability relative
to the importance of authorizing leaders of high quality, the Federalist authors
did nevertheless also express great faith that the procedures of electoral ac-
counting alone would build sufficient sympathy with the people. In this
respect , their approach was more disembodied than that of their Anti -
Federalist counterparts. They generally rejected the Anti - Federalists’ expecta -
tions that the representative assembly should reflect the diversity of the
citizenry, farmers representing farmers , merchants representing merchants ,
“ mecanicks" representing “ mecanicks , ” and so forth Evincing more than a
little distrust of the competence of ordinary citizens, they tended to believe
representatives neither would nor should be “ like” their constituents. Qualita -
tive differences between representative and constituent were not only accept -
able; they were desirable insofar as such differences allowed for those of
superior talents to be chosen . From their perspective , what matters is the com -
petence gap , not the identity gap. Forms of populist accountability that aim to
collapse such qualitative gaps risk jeopardizing good government by removing
capable leaders from office. They would also have perverse effects on govern -
mental accountability by holding officials accountable for the wrong things.
Elections should authorize and hold leaders accountable for what they do , not
for what they are. Although there was some disagreement among the Feder-
alist authors about the relation between political competence and economic
class , these authors tended to agree that , when highly competent representa -
tives know that , come election time , they will be judged for their behavior (and
not for their identity ) , they will be sufficiently motivated to adjust their behav-
ior to serve their constituents’ interests The dependence produced by elec-
tions , along with a well -designed system of checks and balances , would allow
for safe government without jeopardizing government competencies.
In Defense of Long Election Cycles
The Federalist vision of a more distant citizenry is also reflected in their per-
spective on the frequency of electoral accounting. In their criticisms of the
constitution , leading Anti - Federalists had argued for shorter terms in office
than the two-year terms for the House and the six -year terms for the Senate,
both of which they thought were of too long a duration to ensure a proper re-
sponsibility to citizens. In response , Federalists like Madison , Dickinson , and
Ames defended the need for longer election cycles as appropriate for safe and
effective government. Madison 's argument is particularly interesting. If ac-
countability ( or “ responsibility” ) is to be reasonable, he wrote, it “ must be
limited to objects within the power of the responsible party, ” and if it is to be
effectual it “ must relate to operations of that power, of which a ready and
proper judgment can be formed by the constituents. ” Seen in this way, short
election cycles risk making accountability both unreasonable and ineffective.
Madison argued that more frequent electoral accounting would be bad for
government competence. “ No man , " he wrote, “ can be a competent legislator
who does not add to an upright intention and a sound judgment a certain
degree of knowledge of the subjects on which he is to legislate.” Although
much can be learned in private life , some knowledge can only be acquired “ by
actual experience in the station which requires the use of it. ” Consequently,
" theperiod of service ought . . . in all such cases , to bear some proportion to

the extent of practical knowledge requisite to the due performance of the ser-
vice.” Short election cycles would not only, as another Federalist author put
it , keep the nation in “ perpetual electionary ferment .” They would also create
gaps in the institutional knowledge base of the legislature and would thereby
undermine competence. As Madison continued , “ The greater the proportion
of new members and the less the information of the bulk of the members, the
more apt will they be to fall in to the snares that may be laid for them " Sub-
,

jecting government to short cycles of accountability with a relatively rapid

change of leadership would significantly impede its capacity to perform effec-
tively, throwing obstacles in the way of longer- term performance.
Madison went on to argue that short election cycles would impede pro-
cesses of government accountability that require a longer time horizon . He
described , for example , how government officials must be in office a min -
imum amount of time if electoral fraud is to be discovered and controlled for
with accountability procedures. Generally, in order for accountability mech -
anisms to function effectively, accountability-holders must be able to correctly
identify improprieties. If the process is too swift, it may result in account-
ability failures as investigations that require more time are made obsolete.
 In a related fashion , Madison defended the Senate by discussing how fre -
quent elections tend to remove from office those officials who were responsible
-
for policies that have long term effects. Here he linked institutional responsi -
bility to individual responsibility and pointed to the injustice of holding legisla -
tors accountable (or “ answerable” ) for others’ long-term policies.

. . . it
is evident that an assembly elected for so short a term as to be
unable to provide more than one or two links in a chain of measures , on
which the general welfare may essentially depend , ought not to be an -
swerable for the final result any more than a steward or tenant , engaged
for one year, could be justly made to answer for places or improvements
which could not be accomplished in less than half a dozen years.
Accountability requires the assigning of agency. It is difficult enough to pre-
serve personal responsibility in a numerous body where decisions have im -
mediate and palpable effects on constituents. This is made exceedingly
difficult when the responsible parties are no longer around to be identified or
no longer in a position susceptible to sanction . Along similar lines , Federalist
author Nicholas Collin described how “ a member who but comes and goes, is
less responsible for bad public measures , and consequently less animated by
a sense of duty and honor. ” Withreasoning
this , in order to promote ac -
countability and a sense of responsibility, the duration of power needs to be
lengthened to keep responsible parties around . This becomes a rationale for
bicameralism . The proper remedy for the House’s frequent electoral ac -
counting , Madison argued , would be the Senate, which , “ having sufficient
permanency to provide for such objects as require a continued attention , and
a train of measures, may be justly and effectually answerable for the attain -
ments of those objects.” Here again , an expressed concern with accountable
government entails further distancing citizens from government.
Constituencies and the Problems of Scale
The size of government also factors into the Federalist vision of accountability.
In his defense of a smaller sized House of Representatives, Madison drew at-
tention to both the governance and the accountability problems that result
when a governing body becomes too populous and populist. " ( In all legisla -
tive assemblies ," he wrote, “ the greater the number composing them may be ,
the fewer will be the men who will in fact direct their proceedings.” He
explained this in terms of passion and incompetence. The more numerous an
assembly becomes, the greater is the tendency for passion to dominate over
reason in its proceedings. Also , as the number of representatives grows, so
too does the ratio of members lacking the requisite knowledge and capabil -
ities to govern well. The large numbers would , as one Federalist put it , “ clog
the wheels.” This, in turn , creates a situation ripe for the eloquence and ad -
dress of a few to dominate over the others , which thereby opens avenues for
well -organized parties to gain precisely the sort of undue influence that the
Federalists so intently sought to prevent. This oligarchic tendency of large
bodies not only undermines good government; it also offsets the disciplinary
effects of electoral accountability as representatives are duped by the cunning
and sophistry of their peers. The people can never err more, Madison wrote ,
“ than in supposing that by multiplying their representatives beyond a certain
limit they strengthen the barrier against the government of a few.” On the
contrary, after securing a sufficient number for the purposes of “ safety, of local
information , and of diffusive sympathy with the whole society, ” increasing the
size of the representative assembly further would counteract the republican
intention . Republican accountability apparently has its limits. One can
defeat the purpose by multiplying the number of accountable agents too far.
The Federalists correspondingly showed resolve at preventing passionate, less
competent leaders from serving in office, and at designing institutional dy-
namics that would prevent well -organized partisans from dominating policy
making in ways that would diminish the efficacy of representatives’ account -
ability to their constituents.
I 've been arguing that even as the Federalists defended the Constitution as
embodying accountable government, they construed accountability in ways
that involved institutionalizing more, not less , concentration of power, and
more, not less , distance between government and citizens. Although they per -
ceived accountability institutions as an indispensable way to make govern -
ment dependent on the people , their construal of accountability worked to
serve the needs of power by limiting the participation of citizens within a
series of regulated distances. They sought to make government dependent on
the people, but not too dependent. They wished citizens to be active and
involved , but not too active and involved . On one hand they criticized populist
and more decentralized accountability arrangements as detrimental to good
governance. On the other hand they argued that the new Constitution would
embody more, not less , accountability than the alternatives , not despite its
concentrated power, but because of it. This view stands in sharp contrast to
that of the Anti - Federalists , who charged the Federalists with putting forward
an unsafe form of government shockingly devoid of accountability to citizens.
The Anti-Federalist Alternative
-
Even more than the Federalists , the Anti Federalists were a disparate group ,
spanning many strands of opposition to the proposed constitution . Nonethe-
less , taken collectively, these authors gave expression to both a tradition of
dissent in American politics and a very basic distrust of concentrated political
power. In their dissent , one can identify patterns related to accountability
and to the need to enhance governmental dependence upon citizens. Like the
Federalists , they were concerned about preventing the abuse of governmental
power. Also like the Federalists, they believed accountability to citizens was a
vital precautionary mechanism in republican government. As “ Brutus” ( prob -
ably Robert Yates ) wrote, " When great and extraordinary powers are vested in
any man , or body of men , which in their exercise, may operate to the oppres-
sion of the people, it is of high importance that powerful checks should be
formed to prevent the abuse of it.” Accountability to the people offers just
such a check. As he continued ,

Perhaps no restraints are more forcible, than such as arise from re-
—
sponsibility to some superior power. Hence it is that the true policy of
a republican government is , to frame it in such manner, that all per-
sons who are concerned in the government , are made accountable to
—
some superior for their conduct in office. This responsibility should
ultimately rest with the People.

—
When power is concentrated , as it surely is in an extended republic and as it
—
certainly is today in global governance regimes there is a need for powerful
checks. In a republican government in which citizens are considered the
highest authority, they are the ones to whom officials should ultimately be
accountable. As “ Centinel ” ( probably Samuel Bryan ) put it , a government 's
responsibility to its constituents "is the only effectual security for the liberties
and happiness of the people.” While comments such as Centinel's and Bru -
tus's bear a superficial resemblance to those of Federalist authors, this simi-
larity is belied by a rather sharp disagreement about the place of accountability
in the proposed Constitution .
 The Anti - Federalists rejected claims that the Constitution offered an ac-
countable alternative to the British regime. They, in fact , denounced the Con-
stitution for its accountability failures, branding it an aristocratic usurpation
of popular government . Centinel was particularly outspoken on this point. So
far as he was concerned , the Constitution was “ devoid of all responsibility or
accountability to the great body of the people.” He regarded it as an attempt
by the well-born to establish a “ despotic aristocracy among freemen"
through which tyranny may “ glut its vengeance on the low-born." Similar
sentiments were expressed in the influential Pennsylvania Convention Mi -
nority Address , where it was asserted that “ the strongest of all checks upon
the conduct of administration , responsibility to the people , will not exist in this
government. ” Elsewhere, Patrick Henry asked “ Where, Sir, is the responsi -
bility ? ” On his reading, it was the Constitution , and not the British monarchy,
that embodied unaccountability.

This , Sir, is my great objection to the Constitution , that there is

—
no true responsibility and that the preservation of our liberty
depends on the single chance of men being virtuous enough to
make laws to punish themselves. In the country from which we
are descended , they have real , and not imaginary, responsibility for —
 there, maladministration has cost their heads, to some of the most
saucy geniuses that ever were.

In the eyes of Henry. Brutus , Centinel , and other Anti - Federalists like them ,
the Constitution failed abysmally to protect the liberty of citizens in large
part because it failed to provide effective provisions for those citizens to
hold government to account. In the end . the Anti - Federalists had a different
understanding of what accountability entails. Unlike the Federalists , the
Anti - Federalists perceived accountability as a way to resist concentrations of
governing power and to decentralize authority in a manner that would
bring it closer to local communities , without whose meaningful input gov-
ernment would be anything but good .
Constitution and Deconstitution
The new Constitution may indeed have been a “ founding, ” but not ex nihilo .
It was , as Sheldon Wolin has observed , also a deconstitution , most immedi -
ately of the Articles of Confederation , but also of the varied state constitu -
tions. In objecting to the unaccountability of the new Constitution , the
Anti - Federalists were not denying that there were problems with the existing
confederation or that a greater concentration of governmental power may be
necessary. There was in fact wide acceptance that the situation in the country
was critical. Even though the span of their opinions was considerable, the
Anti - Federalists did . nevertheless , tend to believe that the Federalists were
overstating the crisis, that the problems were contextual more than institu -
tional , and that the Articles could be reformed without having to adopt the
radical solution of creating a new constitution.
The Articles , which might be regarded more as a set of treaties than as a
centralized system , had hardly been a pinnacle of accountability. They were
never subjected to popular ratification . Given that Congress was appointed by
state legislatures, there was no way for voters to hold legislators accountable
at elections. There was no executive branch at all , and consequently there was
no body to hold to account for the carrying out of decisions. At the same time ,
states were not held to account for their commitments. Congress did not
reflect the diversity of the American people within states or, given that each
state had one vote regardless of population , among states. In addition , Con -
gress’s sessions were often so sparsely attended as to lack a quorum , which
made decision making difficult and accountability elusive. Despite these
shortcomings, there was a system of accountability in the confederation that
was noteworthy for its state centeredness and for the frequency with which
officials were held to account . What’s more, for all of its accountability prob-
.
lems , the Articles had the virtue of weakness (a virtue that was of course, also
its undoing) . The prospect that Congress would form a tyrannical central
government that would usurp local and state authority was very unlikely
given the limits of its coercive power and given how much authority was
vested in the individual states. By proposing to concentrate power in a na -
tional government , the Federalists were raising both the stakes and the dan -
ger. Greater concentrations of federal power also intensified the need for
vigorous accountability mechanisms to instill a strong sense of responsibility
among officials.
-
This having been said , for the Anti Federalists , the problem extended
beyond the fact that the new government would be strong. It also included the
fact that the new government would be further detached from local commu-
nities. The Anti- Federalists tended to follow the conventional republican wis-
dom of their day that associated principles of popular sovereignty with the
homogeneity of small republics. Even though they, like many others of the
age , were skeptical about the viability of a small republic in an age of growing
commerce and warring nation -states, they nevertheless believed that govern -
ment needed to maintain close ties to small communities. Consequently,
while most of them accepted the need for some form of union and for a more
energetic government than had been provided under the Articles ( especially
when it came to issues of debt and defense ) , they also advised great caution
about concentrating power at too great a distance ( on multiple dimensions)
from the diverse communities it was expected to serve ’
 Unlike the Federalists, for whom diversity within and between states
posed an obstacle to the organizational needs of federal power, for the An -
ti - Federalists the challenge was not to manage diverse communities but rather
to empower them. They were particularly wary that electoral institutions would
be manipulated in ways that would allow a class of urban elites to use a seem -
ingly popular mandate to assume power against the interests of lower and
middling classes and agrarian communities ( as embodied in the figure of the
virtuous yeoman farmer ). These heightened anxieties reflected an awareness
that systems of accountability can themselves be made to support elitist forms
of control. Whereas the Federalists feared that a more participatory account -
ability regime would undermine the republican character of the constitution
by opening the door to factions , the Anti - Federalists feared that a more distant
government would eviscerate the participatory energies necessary for up -
holding and defending the republican spirit .
The Importance of Timely Accounting
Consider the Anti - Federalist approach to the frequency of electoral account -
ability. When it comes to accountable government , timing matters. As noted
previously. Madison argued that governing and accountability problems result
if accountability cycles are too short . The Anti - Federalists , by contrast , pointed
to the problems that result when electoral cycles are too long. Defending the
—
practice of holding annual elections something done both within state gov-
—
ernments and under the Articles the Anti - Federalists tended to believe that
the two-year term in office for representatives and the six-year term in office
for senators would be simply too long to ensure , in Centinel’s words , “ a due
dependence and accountability to their constituents. ” When terms in office
are long, representatives have incentives to discount future electoral account -
ings and to pursue interests other than those of their constituents. Brutus’s
remarks about the Senate are characteristic: “ Men long in office are very apt to
feel themselves independent [and ] to form and pursue interests separate from
those who appointed them .” In the abstract , regular elections induce offi -
cials to " recollect " the people’s interests. This disciplinary effect is, however,
confounded by long election cycles , which tend to wean politicians from their
constituents. Shorter terms in office, by contrast , ostensibly compel legisla -
tors to become better acquainted with their constituents while allowing con -
stituents more frequent opportunities to hold these legislators to account for
their performance.
 In addition to shorter election cycles, many Anti - Federalists also argued
that states should retain the authority to recall senators ' Such an institution
had existed under the confederation as well as within some state constitu -
tions, and its removal under the Constitution reflected the shift of account -
ability away from states. The idea of the recall had come up briefly in the
Constitutional Convention of 1787 , and then again as proposed amendments
in the New York and Massachusetts ratifying conventions. In reaction to
Hamilton’s assertions that the recall would render the senator “ a slave to all
the capricious humors among the people,” the recall’s Anti - Federalist sup-
porters countered that the recall had never been deployed under the confeder-
ation . Moreover, even if the recall had been deployed , they argued , too much
dependence was hardly the greatest danger. As "The Federal Farmer ”
warned , " Men elected for several years , several hundred miles distant from
their states, possessed of very extensive powers , and the means of paying
themselves , will not , probably, be oppressed with a sense of dependence and
responsibility ” ( 2.8.147). Anti - Federalists like The Federal Farmer feared that
senators, on account of their long appointments , would " lose their respect for
the power from whom they receive their existence," and consequently that
they would "disregard the great object for which they are instituted. ” As an
accountability mechanism , the recall option would help states ensure that rep-
resentatives perform responsibly. In the words of The Federal Farmer, “ the
principle of responsibility is strongly felt in men who are liable to be recalled
and censured for their misconduct.” The Federal Farmer goes on to argue
that , beyond its effects upon politicians , the recall option would empower
local actors to keep an eye on the federal government: “ Where there is a power
to recall , trusty centinels among the people, or in the state legislatures , will
have a fair opportunity to become useful ” ( 2.8.147). This concern over the
condition of vigilant citizens is characteristic of the Anti - Federalist approach
to accountability.
For some Anti - Federalists , the very presence of the Senate, with its long
terms in office, was an obstacle to accountability. For these, the Senate marked
a departure from the responsibility one finds in an idealized simple and small
republic. Centinel was particularly outspoken on this point:

The highest responsibility is to be attained , in a simple structure of

government, for the great body of the people never steadily attend to
the operations of government , and for want of due information are li-
able to be imposed on . If you complicate the plan by various orders , the
people will be perplexed and divided in their sentiments about the
source of abuses or misconduct , some will impute it to the senate,
others to the house of representatives, and so on , that the interposition
of the people may be rendered imperfect or perhaps wholly abortive.
The argument is an epistemological one about the challenge of accountability
when responsibility is spread across a multipolar authority structure. A bi-
cameral legislature would interfere with government accountability not only
by extending the term of legislative office beyond reasonable limits but also by
muddling the ability of constituents to correctly determine who should be
held to account for legislative action. A better form of government would sim -
plify representation with only one legislative chamber. Centinel continued .

i f . . . you vest all the legislative power in one body of men (separating
the executive and judicial ) elected for a short period , and necessarily
excluded by rotation from permanency, and guarded from precipi -
tancy and surprise by delays imposed on its proceedings , you will
create the most perfect responsibility for them , whenever the people
 feel a grievance they cannot mistake its authors, and will apply the
remedy with certainty and effect , discarding them at the next election .
This tie of responsibility will obviate all the dangers apprehended
from a single legislature, and will the best secure the rights of the
people. ( 2.7.10 )

Centinel’ s argument resembles Hamilton’ s defense of a singular executive in

that it justifies concentrating power in a single body, only, in this case, it is the
House rather than the presidency. This difference is , however, significant . Un -
like Hamilton , Centinel’ s purpose was to drawr power closer to the people
rather than to concentrate it at a further distance. Even though Centinel’s out -
right rejection of bicameralism was not shared by all Anti - Federalists , his
effort to maximize clarity while minimizing time delays between accountings
is illustrative of the way the Anti - Federalists more generally sought to config-
ure accountability institutions so as to empower citizens and intensify govern -
mental dependence upon them .
Communication and the Scale of Government
This approach was also reflected in their critique of the size of government.
The Anti - Federalists generally believed the representative body should be
large enough to ensure that the different classes of society have meaningful
opportunities to hold government to account if their interests are abused. As
Melancton Smith put it , enlarging the legislature would be "the most effectual
as well as natural security" against corruption in government. For Smith and
others , the House of Representatives offered a mere shadow of representa -
tion. " Reason revolts at the idea , ” he declared , of the liberties of three million
people being entrusted to so few men ( 6.12.19 ). Centinel expressed similar
sentiments about the House:

The number of the representatives ( being only one for every 30 , 000
inhabitants) appears to be too few, either to communicate the requisite
information , of the wants , local circumstances and sentiments of so
extensive an empire, or to prevent corruption and undue influence , in
the exercise of such great powers .. . ( 2.7.22 )

Such characteristic emphasis on diverse local circumstances within a large

republic displayed a concern that government’s great powers might be misused
not only because representatives would have less inclination to serve the inter-
ests of particular communities, but also because they wouldn’t know better.
This is important. Accountability institutions are bound up with the pro -
duction and transmission of knowledge. Whatever their skills and good inten -
tions, leaders depend upon citizens to detect abuses and to mobilize political
energies around rectifying them . The scale of representation affects the nature
of such citizen participation . A relatively small number of representatives
would mean a greater knowledge gap between individual citizens and their
representatives, as each representative would be responsible to more (and
more diverse) constituents. A high citizen - representative ratio would thus
diminish the capacity and incentives of particular individuals and groups of
citizens to make government register and answer for the injustices that are
done to them and their neighbors. If , for example, constituencies were config-
ured to numerically disadvantage yeoman farmers vis-a-vis urban elites, as the
Anti - Federalists believed was occurring, that class would be ill -situated to
effectively hold their representatives to account , even when they suffer abuses.
Thus , even though electoral accountability might still create some depen -
dence on the people, it would be a watered down dependence that would risk
becoming a ruse for aristocratic dominance if the voices of small , rural com -
munities were pushed out of earshot of a distant government.
 Unlike the Federalists , the Anti - Federalists did not seek to create govern -
mental dependency on the people in a general sense. Instead , they tended to
believe that representatives in a republican government should , in George
Mason’s words , “ know and sympathise with every part of the community. "

Responding to Hamilton’s rejection of the claim that all interests of the com -
munity should be represented , Melancton Smith , for example , argued that the
knowledge necessary for the representation of a free people extends beyond
that which is acquired by “ men of refined education , who have leisure to at -
tain high degrees of improvement. ” Rather, it should also comprehend “ that
kind of acquaintance with the common concerns and occupations of the
people, which men of the middling class of life are in general much better
competent to, than those of a superior class” ( 6.12.15). Enlarging the size of
the legislature would result in men of the middling class having a better
chance at entering government, and it would enable “ commoners" to demand
that their experiences and needs be addressed. This was precisely what the
Federalists sought to avoid , because it signaled the introduction of less com -
petence and more passion into government. For the Anti - Federalists, how -
ever, representation by a broader and more diverse set of the population was a
condition of truly accountable government.
Political Culture and Democratic Accountants
For the American founding generation , accountability constituted part of a
politics of control through which the concentrated power of delegated au -
thority would be checked and guided by the periodic exercise of popular sov-
ereignty. Nevertheless , as I have already suggested , government is not the only
object of control. Accountability institutions can also have controlling effects
on citizens. Though this might be useful for the organizational needs of insti-
tutional power, such effects might also undermine the very popular energies
that government accountability requires as its conditions of possibility. Ac-
countability is part of the process through which citizens help shape the ends
of government. Consequently, evaluating accountability mechanisms requires
assessing how effectively they enable and transmit diverse citizens’ feedback.
This is to suggest that even from the perspective of institutional efficacy and
good governance, maintaining a culture of citizen involvement is crucial.
 In the quest for institutions of accountability that reflect the spirit of pop-
ular sovereignty, the accounting capacity of the citizenry matters. Republican
accountability depends , in short , upon republican “ accountants.” In this vein ,
one might see the Anti - Federalists’ efforts to narrow the gaps between repre-
sentatives and citizens as efforts to defend the diverse political cultures in
which citizen activity provided the structure for government accountability. To
be fair, the Anti - Federalists were not alone in recognizing the importance of
an enlightened and vigilant citizenry. In his New York ratification speeches ,
for example, Hamilton identified an enlightened citizenry as an indispensable
check against tyranny, and Madison showed considerable concern in his later
writings over the general tendency toward citizen complacency. In spite of
—
that , the Federalist authors with some major exceptions, such as Jefferson
—
tended to be less attentive than the Anti - Federalists to the influence that insti -
tutions have on the capacity of citizens to be enlightened , awakened , and
united. For the Anti- Federalists , it was a mistake to rely upon a vigilant citi-
zenry abstracted from the institutional context in which they live. As Smith
declared in response to Hamilton ,

To say, as this gentleman does , that our security is to depend upon the
spirit of the people , who will be watchful of their liberties , and not
suffer them to be infringed , is absurd . It would equally prove that we
might adopt any form of government. ( 6.12.20 )

Crucially for Smith , the issue was not only how the spirit of the people oper-
ates on government , but also how the government operates on the spirit of the
people. The two are thoroughly intertwined. Accountability institutions have
effects upon citizens. They can cause them to engage or disengage from poli-
tics , and they can develop or leave undeveloped the skills of collective political
action . Following Wolin , one might say that the wherewithal to hold govern -
ment to account constitutes a “ member skill" developed in particular political
cultures that both affect and are affected by political institutions. By super-
seding local and state governance institutions through the consolidation of
federal authority, the proposed Constitution involved a deactivation of the po-
litical cultures of accountability surrounding those institutions. Although the
new institutions of federal government would generate new cultures of ac-
countability around federal elections , the Anti - Federalists were skeptical about
the sort of citizen capacities they would foster. When citizens are expected to
engage with government only by voting once every two or four years , the skills
of demanding that government account for its activities go underdeveloped .
Within the Anti - Federalist framework , republican accountability requires in -
stitutions that not only depend upon a republican spirit but also encourage it ,
in diverse communities and among commoners as well as among the polit-
ical , economic, and indeed natural elite . From this perspective, some disorder
is to be expected as part of vibrant public life in a diverse republic.
 When it comes to institutional design , history has been kinder to the Fed-
eralists’ perspective. In many respects , they had the winning argument , and
their insights subsequently shaped many of the dominant ideas about how
democracy and accountability should be structured in modern polities. Theirs
was a vision of accountability conceived for an expanded sphere of national
government. The Anti - Federalists’ vision , by contrast , emerged out of a con -
cern over what would be lost as the political sphere expanded and govern -
ment’s power intensified. Their more participatory approach to accountability
became increasingly difficult to realize as government moved further from
the local level. Though they did offer some concrete suggestions for institu-

— —
tionalizing greater accountability on the national level examples include
annual elections , the recall , and larger assemblies these were losing propo-
sitions arguably intended less as suggestions for perfecting the national order
and more as rationales for rejecting the Constitution as inherently unsafe and
unaccountable. This does not , however, make their vision of accountability
any less important today, especially if one attends to the anxieties they
expressed rather than to the specific institutions they proposed. Problems of
political disempowerment persist in contemporary politics. Distances don 't
cease to be a problem for democratic accountability just because they grow
wider. This point is particularly salient given contemporary patterns of global -
ization that challenge national frameworks and widen the gaps separating
those who make major governance decisions from the communities and indi -
viduals governed by those decisions. The Federalists may have won the histor-
ical argument but the search for alternatives makes it all the more important
to reconsider arguments that did not win the day.

Cautionary Tales of Exclusion and

Unaccountable Constitutions
-
Perhaps it is obvious that not all forms of political accountability reflect repub
lican principles; but less obvious is the observation that even republican
-
accountability institutions can fail to foster republican ideals. Both the Federal
ists and the Anti- Federalists understood that accountability institutions can be
unrepublican in effect despite being republican in form . The mere fact that
republican accountability institutions are in place does not mean that the
demos is properly constituted and exercising control. Nor does it ensure that
government malfeasance and incompetence will lie checked. In this sense the
ratification debates illuminate both the importance of accountability institu-
tions for managing governance gaps and the need for caution when assessing
those same institutions. More specifically, these debates challenge common -
-
place assumptions that there is an unavoidable trade off between governmental
accountability and governmental efficacy. They also complicate simple formula-
tions that would equate increased citizen participation with increased govern -
mental accountability. As the Federalists illustrated , some of the concentrations
of power that presumably enhance government efficacy can also facilitate gov -
ernment accountability, whereas some of the decentralizations of power often
associated with greater popular accountability can actually undermine both
the efficacy and accountability of government. On the other hand , as the Anti -
Federalists illustrated , concern over efficacy needs to be accompanied by the
question “ Effective for what ? ” Popular participation in accountability mecha -
nisms gives shape to the ends government should pursue, and it conveys vital
knowledge of social needs and government failures. In this vein , more partici -
patory and decentralized forms of accountability can contribute to good gov-
—
ernment , and without an active public itself enabled by participatory
institutions— accountability will be stunted . The details of institutional design
determine how competing republican agendas are to be balanced. They can also
make the difference between accountability regimes that help generate republi -
can legitimacy and those that provide normative cover for abuses of power.
There is yet another, even more cautionary, lesson to be drawn from the
ratification debates. Both the Federalists and the Anti - Federalists were dealing
with the question of how citizens would be included in processes for holding
government accountable. Yet both groups were ultimately dealing with popu -
lations that were, in a larger sense, already included. Citizenship was a back -
ground assumption. The notion of popular sovereignty that animated their
visions was premised upon a prior determination of who is and is not a legit -
imate participant. The authority to make this predetermination was widely
thought to fall upon the citizenry itself. As Pennsylvania aristocrat Gouver -
neur Morris remarked at the U .S. Constitutional Convention , " If every society,
from a great nation down to a club, had the right of declaring the conditions
on which new members should be admitted , there could be no room for com -
plaint." 1 Yet the clublike nature of citizenship has historically also been a
source of grave and unaccountable injustice. The legacies of slavery and gen -
dered exclusion haunt the ratification debates. Through assertions of sover-
eign (and , therefore, unaccountable ) power, institutions of republican /
democratic accountability have been complied in , among other things , disen -
franchisement along race , class , and gender lines. These exclusions have, in
turn , been bound up with the production and maintenance of racialized and
gendered political economies. The distinct accountability frameworks envi -
-
sioned by the Federalists and the Anti Federalists may have reflected republi -
can principles internally among full members of the polity, but they did not
reflect those principles more broadly. There remained many members of so -
ciety who lacked full (or even partial ) citizenship and who were, by implica-
tion , governed without access to democratic venues for exacting accountability
 -
from government . Thus , the Federalists and Anti Federalists not only teach us
to exercise caution about the inner workings of accountability institutions;
they also offer a cautionary tale about the need for reflexive and critical ap-
proaches to accountability’s external borders and about the need to foster in -
stitutional receptivity to the grievances of extra - institutional stakeholders.
Taking a cue from the Anti - Federalists , we can also see the need to develop
political cultures that encourage those who are governed yet excluded to
demand accountability from the powers that govern and exclude them. This
may, in the end , be the greater challenge for any form of governance aiming
to derive legitimacy with claims that it is accountable in a democratic or repub-
lican way.
The ratification debates took place in the very specific historical and cul -
tural context of postindependence eighteenth -century America . Nevertheless,
even a casual reader of contemporary politics should be able to recognize that
many of the concerns expressed in the ratification debates resonate today.
They resonate with debates over globalization and the future of representative
democracy. They resonate with discussions about the relative merits and
dangers of citizen participation , concentrated power, controlled government ,
controlled publics, and political exclusion . And they resonate with new cos-
mopolitan efforts to conceive accountability institutions as a way to mediate
between republican principles of popular sovereignty and the expanded
powers of increasingly distant authority. Although I do not develop these
connections systematically here, I explore many of these themes further in
subsequent chapters. As tempting as it may be to draw direct analogies , 1 do
not wish to suggest that the Federalists and or the Anti- Federalists provide a
model that can or should simply be extended to the global level. Like others , I
am skeptical about simple analogies between domestic and transnational pol -
itics. 1 also believe it is necessary to attend to the historical , cultural , and geo-
political specificities of the U .S. case, a case that is exceptional more than
exemplary in many, if not most , respects. What the ratification debates do
offer is heightened awareness about the multiple agendas that republican
accountability can serve and about many pitfalls that stand in the way of even
well -intentioned accountability designs.
In the next chapter. I continue my analysis of accountability as an expres-
sion of popular authority and as an instrument of control. However, I shift the
focus to more contemporary contexts and to the popular principal-agent
framework developed by analytic democratic theorists. As we will see , some of
the institutional barriers to democratic accountability are even more intrac-
table than those imagined here.
T H E P R I N C I P A L-A G E N T M O D E L O F A C C O U N T A B I L I T Y

THE ACCOUNTABILITY DEBATES between the Federalists and Anti - Federalists

reflect complex and competing understandings about the nature of interests
and the meaning of representation in a diverse society. Despite their differ -
.
ences both sets of authors agreed that governmental accountability to citizens
was necessary to enforce popular sovereignty in a large republic. The adoption
of representative government had created new gaps between ruler and ruled.
Accountability institutions , and especially elections , were meant to regulate
those gaps and prevent misrepresentation and abuses of power. In this respect ,
democratic (or republican ) accountability in eighteenth -century America con -
stituted part of a system of popular control designed to enforce government’s
dependence upon citizens , the presumed ultimate source of political authority,
while simultaneously affording rulers some room for independent judgment.
The basic parameters of such a vision are reproduced in many more recent
approaches, where calls for greater democratic accountability are associated
with citizens’ capacity to discipline public officials with their voting power.
In this chapter, I focus attention on one particular model of accountability
that has become especially influential among analytic social scientists. This
— —
model what I refer to as the principal -agent model of accountability defines
accountability in terms of hierarchical relationships between self- interested
“ agents” and the “ principals” whose preferences they are supposed to serve.
Accordingly, representative democracy is understood as involving a principal-
agent ( hereafter PA ) relationship between citizens and their political repre-
sentatives. This model shares with the Federalists and Anti- Federalists a
concern over popular sovereignty, representation , electoral institutions , and
abuses of power. And like the earlier authors , this model frames democratic
accountability as primarily a matter of controlling public officials through
careful institutional design. As we saw in the previous chapter, the mere exis-
tence of accountability institutions does not guarantee that rulers will actually
be held to account as intended . Accountability frameworks ostensibly designed
to control government can end up pacifying citizens while creating new op-
portunities for governmental abuse. Regular elections , for example, typically
leave a lot of room for officials to obfuscate their behavior and manipulate the
public. The PA model likewise draws attention to how governmental account -
ability can be thwarted by poorly designed institutions.
The PA model differs from these earlier approaches , however, because of
its narrower methodological assumptions. Following in the Federalist tradi -
tion , the model takes Madison 's observations about political interests and
refines them into a formal theory of political behavior.1 In place of the thickly
situated and culturally, geographically, and economically diverse citizenry
discussed by the Federalists and Anti - Federalists , the PA model treats citi -
zens and politicians as so many self-interested individuals seeking to maxi -
mize their own predetermined preferences. Anti - Federalist concerns over
social class and descriptive representation are thus replaced with methodo-
logical individualism and the language of incentives , self-interest , prefer-
ences , and rational choice. For the sake of analysis, citizens and their
representatives are stripped of their cultural and class markers; they become
just principals and agents.
In the following pages , I give a critical account of this approach . I begin by
outlining the basic parameters of agency theory and how it relates to represen -
tative democracy. I then describe some of the model's benefits. Among other
things, it brings methodological rigor to analyses of accountability and polit -
ical abuses of power. It proves especially useful for analyzing incentive struc-
tures , strategic behavior, and the informational asymmetries that pervade
democratic politics. The model has the additional benefit of simplifying the
disciplinary framework . When all significant actors are assumed to be rational
and self-interested , it is easier to conceptualize how to structure incentives to
shape political behavior in ways that enforce popular control.
 Nevertheless, as useful as the model can be, too often it is pushed beyond
selected contexts and made to define accountability as such. This is a mistake. I
argue that the model's narrow reliance on institutional hierarchies between
principals and their agents means that it excludes many conventional forms of
political accountability that are not organized around such hierarchies. The
model is also ill -suited for addressing relations of mutual accountability found
among citizens and within civil society. Moreover, because the model presumes
the institutionalization of the PA relationship as a background condition , it fails
to register accountability practices and demands coming from outside estab-
lished institutional frameworks. Protest and disputations within public spheres ,
for example, can be vital sources of accountability in democratic politics, but
these rarely conform to PA categories. Finally, despite the model’s utility for
analyzing public control over government , not all aspects of accountability can
be reduced to issues of discipline and control. In addition to being a disciplinary
check on power, accountability practices can play a role in the production of
shared understandings, in the generation of citizenship skills , and in delibera -
tion over the public good. Instead of merely reflecting authority relations that
are already in place, accountability practices can help to constitute authority.
These functions find little representation in the principal framework analytic.
The stakes of this assessment are significant. If we understand democratic
accountability as a PA problem , the solution to democratic accountability def-
icits is to establish , ex ante, clear hierarchies of authority with a neatly demar-
cated constituency whose power can then be perfected through institutional
design and the careful management of individual self-interest. The task
changes significantly if we understand democratic accountability as involving,
not just the assumption of hierarchies , but also the destabilization of unjust
hierarchies; not just the assumption of community, but also the creation of
new forms of social solidarity through accountability practices themselves;
and not just the internal dynamics of formal institutions , but also the external
dynamics between formal institutions and outsiders. Democratic account -
ability, I argue, needs to be expanded beyond the boundaries of existing insti -
tutions and communities to register the claims of those excluded from formal
authority structures and to include situations involving mutual answerability
among citizens and stakeholders.
Accountability as a Principal-Agent Relationship
Adapted from economics and often accompanied with mathematical formulas
for predicting behavior, agency theory is a modeling technique used to analyze
relationships in which one actor ( the agent ) is authorized to act on behalf of
another actor ( the principal ) , but where the agent has the ability and the incen -
tives to deviate from the principal's interests and wishes. The approach is
organized around rational choice assumptions that preferences are predeter-
-
mined and that individuals are egoistic , rational , and interest maximizing. PA
relationships originate with a process of authorization in which authority is
conditionally granted to an agent. A principal might grant authority to an
agent because the agent has certain kinds of information , expertise , or capa -
bilities that the principal lacks , or simply because the agent has more time.
We might , for example, hire a lawyer to handle our legal concerns or a doctor
to help manage our health because they have expertise that we lack , or we
might recruit a neighbor to run simple errands on our behalf because we
are preoccupied with other matters. In modern representative govern -
ments , agency relations are presumed to exist on several levels. For example ,
civil servants are in agency relationships with the heads of executive agencies
who appoint them . The heads of executive agencies, in turn , are in agency
relationships with the chief executive. Most important for the argument of
this book , elected officials are seen to be in agency relationships with the
voters who elect them
To be considered a PA relationship an actor must do more than merely act
on behalf of another actor. He / she must also have received authorization from
that other to do so. A charity organization might , for example , advocate on
behalf of the poor without having been authorized by poor communities. It is
not in a PA relationship. PA relationships also assume that the granted au -
thority is conditional and that the principal has sufficient autonomy to object
to and revoke the delegated authority if necessary. Parents of a young child are
not in a PA relationship when they promote the interests of that child , if we
assume that the child is unable to expressly authorize them or advocate on
his / her own behalf. What distinguishes a PA relationship , then , is the condi -
tional grant of authority from one actor to another with the expectation that
the latter will serve the interest of the former, along with the presumption that
the granter of authority has the ability and right to object to and revoke the
authority of his / her agent.
 Within these parameters , the framework allows for some variation and
complexity. An agent can have multiple principals if they have multiple con -
tracts with organizationally distinct principals. Federal bureaucratic agencies ,
for example , have been considered the agents of both the American Congress
and the president. Agency relationships can also involve agents and /or prin -
cipals that themselves have collective identities. For example , instead of hiring
an individual lawyer as my agent . I might hire a law firm consisting of several
lawyers. In that case , I have a collective agent . An agent in turn is said to have
a collective principal (as opposed to multiple principals ) when there is a single
contract with a principal composed of more than one actor. Voters might , for
example , be seen as a collective principal when they delegate authority to pol -
iticians. So. too. might legislators be seen as a collective principal when they
delegate authority to a party leader.
The nature of agents’ obligations can also vary considerably. In some PA
relationships , the agent is expected to follow the principal’s narrowly specified
preferences and precise instructions. In other PA relationships , the agent’s
obligations are more general and the agent is given considerably more latitude
.
for independent judgment. Either way the nature of the obligations is thought
to be contained implicitly or explicitly within the authorization process, which
is construed as a sort of contract or promise One feature of the PA model
remains nonnegotiable. The principal’s authority remains decisive.
PA problems arise when the interests of the principal and the agent do not
coincide, when the principal cannot easily determine if the agent is serving the
principal’s interests , and when the principal’s capacity to reward and punish
the agent is limited. As our agents, we expect our lawyer, our doctor, our neigh -
bor, or our political representative to respect our wishes and look out for our
best interest. They might , nevertheless , also have competing incentives to
minimize their effort or their costs, to take greater or lesser risks than we
might like, or to misrepresent their capabilities in order to win our support in
the first place. We may have the authority, but our agents have informational
advantage. Because of information asymmetries , monitoring difficulties , and
different payoff structures, we simply can’ t be certain that our agents are doing
as they should . Most of us lack the requisite background or expertise to eval -
uate our doctor or lawyer’s judgments , and following our contractors around
to monitor them is costly and defeats the purpose of hiring them . The poten -
—
tial for agency slack that is , the prospect that an agent willtake independent
—
action that is not desired by the principal consequently inhabits the very
structure of the relationship. Hence what the PA framework presents above all
else is the need for discipline and control . As Oxford’s Dictionary of Economics
describes it , the PA problem is “ the problem of how person A can motivate
-
person B to act for A's benefit rather than following self interest . ” That is, the
primary challenge posed by the PA problem is figuring out a verifiable way to
rein the agents in to ensure they do not abuse their delegated authority or
shirk their responsibilities to serve the principals’ interests.
 Strategies for addressing PA problems typically involve some combination
of incentives, monitoring, rule making, and coercion . Principals might use
constitutional or contractual design to alter the rules or to adjust the agent’s
payoff structure in ways that encourage compliance with principals’ wishes.
By raising the cost of noncompliance, principals can help ensure their agents
won’t deliberately shirk their responsibilities. Alternatively, principals might
develop improved screening mechanisms to select more reliable agents in the
first place , or they might institute reporting and monitoring requirements to
identify noncompliance more effectively. They might also seek to contain the
agents’ autonomy by creating institutional checks and balances. Each of these
strategies carries costs and each has shortcomings , as has been studied else -
where. My particular interest in this chapter is how accountability mecha -
nisms are conceived as tools for overcoming such problems.
Viewed through the lens of accountability, "the principal" refers to the
one who holds accountable, and “ the agent ” refers to the one who is held
accountable. The agent’ s accountability to the principal derives from the fact
that the principal authorized the agent to begin with . The primary, although
not only, way this accountability is exercised is by dismissing or refusing to
renew the authority of the agent . In the words of one set of agency theorists ,
withholding delegated authority is “ the very essence of accountability.” 1 One
might say that accountability is the conditionality of that authorization
coming home to roost. By the same token , the principal has the authority to
hold the agent to account because he / she is the source of the agent's au -
thority. Authorization and accountability are , thus , closely related , albeit they
run in opposite directions. Whereas authorization runs from principal to
agent , accountability runs from agent to principal. In this simple formula -
tion , the agent’s authority is conditional upon the ongoing support of the
principal , whose own authority is taken for granted . In more complicated
scenarios, a chain of delegation might mean that one actor’s agent becomes
 Agentj

.
.2
S3
£*
-
O

o 3
o
-53 u
<
V
Agent , / Principal,
(The same individual
serves two functions)

.A
.2
S3
N
4
c 3
o o
-£
3 u
<

V
Principal ,

. Nested Principal-Agent Relationships.

FIGURE 2 i
another actor’s principal. As a principal I might hire a lawyer to advocate for
me as my agent. She, in turn , might serve as a principal when she hires a
paralegal as her agent to help her meet my needs. In a more political context ,
we might say that legislative staff members are the agents of the legislators
who appoint them , and that the legislators are, in turn , the agents of their
constituents. In such scenarios we find nested accountability dynamics , as
I ’ ve depicted in Figure 2.1.
As the chain of principals and agents grows longer and more complex , so,
too, does the likelihood of agency slack increase as the interests of the ulti -
mate principal (s ) grow more distant from the exercise of power. As the chain
of delegation grows, so, too, does the need for corrective measures to main -
tain control. Reliable accountability mechanisms become all the more impor-
tant for tightening the slack.
Agency theory has found a wide set of applications within business, bu-
reaucracies , and private law, all contexts that deal primarily with contract and
involve organizational hierarchies. The model has also increasingly been
adapted to studies of political representation. It is out of this application to
representative democracy that the PA framework has become a model not
only for accountability but for democratic accountability specifically.
Agency Theory and Representative Government
As suggested in chapter 1, the ideal of representation has been at the core of
modern democratic theory’s efforts to reconcile democratic principles of
self-governance and popular sovereignty with the practical need to delegate
authority. Accountability has been indispensible for efforts to realize this
ideal. Even if citizens are regarded as the ultimate political authority, gover-
nance beyond a small scale requires the separation of citizens from the every -
day exercise of governance power. Rule by the people is almost always
mediated by the need for the delegation of responsibilities. Governance
within modern democratic regimes may be for the people but it is rarely by the
people. Through representation , citizens’ interests can ( in principle ) be made
present in government even when the citizens themselves are absent. How -
ever, the gaps that separate actual presence from virtual presence create op-
portunities for abuse. Merely authorizing officials to act on voters' behalf is no
guarantee that they won’ t simply abuse their power once in office. Without a
mechanism to ensure that representatives are behaving as they should , there
are often reasons to expect that they will behave differently, especially where
positions of power create strong incentives to serve private rather than public
interests. For this reason , many believe representation requires enforcement
mechanisms to ensure public officials remain true to the responsibilities of
their office. Accountability serves such a function.
On its surface, the dynamics of authorization and accountability found
within representative democracy more or less mirror those within the PA
framework. It requires only a simple step to recast elections and representa -
tion in terms of agency theory. As Jose Maravall describes .
We can examine this relationship between politicians and citizens
within the framework of agency theory .. . The voters, as principal , will
select an agent out of several competitors in an election , invest him
with power, and expect him to respond to their policy preferences: that
is, to adhere to electoral programs and political promises on whose
grounds the selection of the agent was made. The agent will be politi -
cally accountable when the principal can hold him responsible for past
performance and . therefore , reward him with election or punish him
with defeat.
Citizens ( as embodied in the voting constituency ) become principals who ,
through elections , give conditional grants of authority to representatives to
act on their behalf. As agents , those representatives are accountable to their
citizen - principals when they face reelection and the possible revocation of
their authority. Elections, thus, serve a double function . They both authorize
and hold accountable. Both authorization and accountability establish a con -
nection between the representative and the represented , but the nature of the
connection differs. Authorization establishes the conditional authority and
sets the standards. Electoral accountability fulfills the task of enforcement. It
offers voters in a district a way to keep control over their representative to
ensure he/she either follows voter instructions (a mandate model of represen -
-
tation ) or advance their long term interests (a trustee model of representa -
tion ). Seen through the optic of agency theory, democratic accountability
becomes one instance of a larger class of situations involving authority figures
trying to ensure their agents do what they are supposed to do.
Approaching democratic accountability as a PA relationship is one useful
way for modeling how elections can , in theory, exert political discipline over
officials. Given assumptions of self-interest , voters have reason to suspect that
public officials will shirk their public responsibilities when it is personally
gainful. Officials will be inclined , for example, to deviate from campaign
promises or to prioritize their own autonomy and power over the public good
when adapting to changing circumstances. By the same token , this self-
interestedness inclines elected officials to do whatever is necessary to retain
their position in power. This can work to voters’ advantage if the right incen -
tives are put in place. It is because of politicians' self- interested desire for of-
fice that elections acquire disciplinary bite and citizen principals acquire
leverage over their representative agents. So conceived , electoral account -
ability has both corrective and deterrent dimensions.
Elections correct for adverse selection by removing poor performing offi -
cials from office. In this respect , governments are accountable if citizens can
discern the behavior of elected officials in the interelectoral period and if they
can then vote to retain those officials who have performed well , while ousting
those who have not . I illustrate this in Figure 2.2.
Removing errant officials is only one side of electoral accountability’s con -
trolling potential. Elections’ greater utility may, in fact , lie in their deterrent
effects upon officials during the interelectoral period . Elections control for
moral hazard by disciplining elected officials with the threat of electoral sanc-
tions in the future. They operate as a "contingent renewal” mechanism in
which the renewal of authority is contingent upon an official’s ongoing perfor-
mance in office. Politicians interested in retaining their offices must worry
not about the meaning of past elections but about their fate at future elections.
As V. O. Key famously argued , the only really effective weapon of popular con -
trol in a democratic regime is the capacity of the electorate to throw a party
 Time, Time , ,
Time
(Election) (Inter -electoral Period) (Election)

Representative Representative Representative

(agent) (agent) (agent )

OR

Remove Reelect
j Voters evaluate
I how well their
j representative

>
§ j has served their
Performance Behavior
II obligations in office
i interests in
• Time2 and then
II
<
: sanction or
: reward him/her
: with removal or
j re - election

ooo ooo ooo

oo Voters
ooVoters
oo Voters
(principal) (principal) ( principal)

FIGURE 2.2 Electoral Accountability as a Way to Control for Adverse Selection.

from power. Knowing that they will have to answer for their performance
come election time, officials and the political parties that front them have rea -
son to avoid decisions in the present that will elicit rejection by voters in the
future. Elections pressure officials to be mindful of the obligations of their
office. This deterrent effect can work even if electoral sanctions are never ac-
tualized . The mere threat of voter retribution at the polls can discipline public
officials to take into account the preferences of voters. In Figure 2.3, 1 dia -
gram how this discipline is exercised in the interelectoral period .
With this combination of corrective and deterrent applications, electoral
accountability generates incentives for politicians to make policy decisions
congruent with voters’ preferences. Agency theory provides a convenient way
to formally model this dynamic so as to construct a set of expectations and to
—
predict behavior. If we assume that voters vote retrospectively that is , based
upon officials' past performance rather than upon candidate platforms or
—
promises for the future and if we assume that public officials act strategi -
cally, we can generate hypotheses about how politicians will adjust their
behavior based upon their calculations about their electability. We can , corre -
spondingly, theorize how incentives can be adjusted to maximize the likeli -
hood that officials will be responsive to voters.
 Time, Time2 Time}
(Election) -
(Inter electoral Period) (Election)

Representative Representative Representative

(agent ) (agent) (agent)

OR

Remove Re - elect

{
The threat of
losing office i
:
.1 ~ Performance Behavior / disciplines
3 O
obligations representatives

3
<
V
in office

^ to take voters'
interests into
account in Time2
t

~ A

ooo ooo ooo

oo Voters
QO
Voters
oo Voters
(principal) (principal) ( principal)

FIGURE 2.3 Electoral Accountability as a Deterrent against Poor Performance.

 As useful as it is for modeling how electoral control can be optimized ,
agency theory’s greater impact has stemmed from its use in exposing ac-
countability failures. The unreliability of electoral accountability as a means
of controlling government is one of the most consistent themes to emerge
from the agency- theory aproach . For electoral accountability to effectively
discipline government, a lot has to go right . Among other things , connec-
tions need to be established and maintained between officials’ behavior and
their political survival in office. Sadly, such connections often don’ t exist.
Whenever citizens’ information about government is unverifiable , there will
arise the possibility that politicians' actual behavior in office will be dis-
crepant with public perceptions of it. At the end of the day, elections are
blunt instruments. They take place only after significant time delays , and
they typically involve a decision of only yes or no , whereas policies and
incumbent behavior are usually much more complex. The information gaps
are often insurmountable. To succeed at controlling public officials , electoral
sanctions need to be accompanied by good information . Voters , however,
face tremendous obstacles in their efforts to monitor and evaluate politi -
cians. Public officials have access to information that ordinary citizens do
not possess. Few voters have the time to follow policy debates closely. Most
lack the requisite skill to evaluate complex policy and the competing claims
made by policy "experts ,” and many of the activities of public officials take
place behind closed doors. Moreover, in order to make informed decisions
about whether to reelect an incumbent , voters need information not only
about policies and outcomes but also about the contributions of particular
officials. This can be very difficult given that most policy making is a collec-
tive affair involving complex legislative procedures and institutions with
many political layers. Electoral campaigns can themselves be massive or-
chestrations of party propaganda and misinformation. For these and other
reasons , the electorate has only a limited capacity to figure out what their
agents are doing and why. All these obstacles acquire greater clarity within
the agency- theory framework .
 In addition to clarifying the informational obstacles that can thwart elec-
toral accountability, agency theory also helps to illuminate how elections fail
due to political manipulation, collective action problems , and clientelism,
as well as by prospective voting, noncompetitive elections , and incum -
bency advantages. These can have compound effects. Voters’ ability to disci -
pline officials with threats of electoral accountability relies upon the reliability
and accuracy of elections as a source of accountability as well as upon offi -
cials' desire (and eligibility ) for reelection . The more unreliable and imprecise
elections are at sanctioning officials for their past performance the more rea -
son savvy politicians have for discounting elections in the interim.
There is little question that the PA framework captures much of what is
meant by democratic accountability in modern times and that agency theo-
rists have illustrated some of democratic accountability's potential and
many of its pitfalls. As outlined earlier, agency theory brings an admirable
methodological clarity to the study of democratic accountability. Its subjects
are clear: As principal , voters are the highest authority. The general nature
of the obligations are clear: As agents, representatives should serve the
interests and preferences of voters. And the primary mechanism of account -
ability is clear: Elections both authorize and hold governing agents to ac -
count . Comprehending democratic accountability in these terms sharpens
awareness of the informational constraints , interest incompatibilities , and
strategic behavior that pervade democratic politics. This , in turn , helps us
understand how to improve the control exercised during elections and to
maximize the disciplinary effects of electoral accountability upon public of -
ficials during the interelectoral period. Even if not all officials are as rational
and self-interested as the model presumes , the PA framework helps to ex -
pose gaps in the electoral process that can be exploited by those officials
who are. In the Madisonian tradition that many of these theorists self -
consciously reference, agency theory can thus help us to design account -
ability institutions that discipline even devilish politicians to be more
responsive to voters’ interests.
 Despite its numerous virtues , agency theory paints only a partial picture of
what democratic accountability entails and of the sort of relationships it
involves. In the remainder of this chapter. I develop four major critiques of the
model. First , I discuss forms of political representation that don’ t fit the
agency-theory framework. Second , I discuss relations of mutual and hori -
zontal accountability that defy agency theory’s reliance upon formal hierarchy.
Third , I contend that , as a model of democratic accountability, the PA model
has too narrow a focus upon discipline and control and gives too little atten -
tion to accountability’s democratically constitutive and transformative poten -
tials. Finally, I argue that the model reflects a bias in favor of institutional
status quos. This bias makes it blind to expressions of accountability that cut
across and help to ( re) constitute institutional boundaries. Out of this discus-
sion emerges a picture of the PA model of accountability as a potent analytic
framework with a relatively narrow range of application . For a richer under-
standing of democratic accountability’s meanings and potential , we w ill need
to look beyond principals and agents and the paradigm of control implied in
their relationship.
Representation Isn't Reducible to
Principals and Agents
The use of agency theory to comprehend democratic accountability stems, in
large part , from the theory 's broader application to political representation .
The connection between agency theory and representation is, however, far
from seamless. On one hand , we can see that not all PA relationships involve
representation . If I hire a courier to deliver a letter, she becomes my agent.
She does not , thereby, become my representative. Representation requires a
particular sort of authorization as well as an audience or third party with
whom the agent must interact on behalf of the principal. To make my courier
into my representative I would have to authorize her to represent me or my
interests to third parties. Similarly, in the realm of government there are many
PA relationships that make governing possible, most notably in state bureau -
cracies. Of these , however, only a small subset reflect political representation .
On the other hand , and more important for my argument , not all forms of
political representation conform to the PA framework and the model of ac-
countability it entails. For example, in her classic study on representation
Hanna Pitkin described an "authorization ” approach to representation that is
directly opposed to the sort of "accountability" approaches implied by the PA
framework. For the authorization theorist , as typified by Hobbes, being a rep-
resentative means “ being freed from the usual responsibility for one's ac-
tions." Elections are conceived as a grant of authority, not as an obligation to
be responsive to one’ s authorizes. Once authorized , Hobbes’s sovereign is
presumed free from obligations to return to the people of the commonwealth
to justify his behavior. The sovereign has an obligation to procure the safety of
the people from whom he derives his authority, but as sovereign he is not ac-
countable to those people. He is accountable to no one save God .
 In Hobbes’ s authoritarian sovereign , we find a form of representation for
which conventional forms of accountability are irrelevant. This is not. how-
ever, unique to Hobbes and authoritarianism . In more democratic contexts,
too, the meaning of representation extends beyond the PA framework. The
PA model assumes that representatives should be bound and oriented to the
implicit or explicit promise made upon their authorization by the principal.
Voters may, however, vote for a candidate not with the expectation that that
candidate will follow their preferences or even directly serve their interests
but rather with the expectation that the candidate’s good character will lead to
good judgment. This “ gyroscopic" model , as Mansbridge calls it , breaks with
the analytic assumptions underlying the “ promissory ” model of account -
ability implied by the PA framework . While constituents still authorize the
representative, external incentives are not seen as necessary to enforce good
behavior. The task of voters is not to induce preferences in the representative,
but rather to install competent and predictable candidates in office in the first
place. Here, the problem of representation becomes encapsulated within the
task of selection. Moral hazard is utterly discounted and , correspondingly,
accountability’s disciplinary effects become redundant. As Kingdon famously
observed , the official need not even take the constituency into account .
Agency theory also presumes the integrity of the principal across time. If
the principal’s role as authorizer at the time of election is what entitles it to
hold the agent to account at reelection , then that authority and mandate are
jeopardized if the principal changes in the meantime. Constituencies , how-
ever, are rarely as static as the PA model suggests. People die. Others come of
age. Families move. Voting districts are altered . Preferences change. Even if
voters vote retrospectively and officials behave prospectively, the identities and
standards that are applied at reelection might still be quite distinct from the
standards and identities that put the official into office. In that case, the con -
nection between authorization and accountability breaks down , and so too
does the relation between principal and agent. Accountability becomes not
only retrospective; it becomes retroactive as principals with new compositions
apply altered standards to hold officials to account for past behavior.
 In other models of representation , the problem isn’ t the redundancy of
accountability but rather the inclusion of nonprincipals. As a model of repre-
sentation and accountability, the PA framework cannot easily make sense of
representation of people who are not themselves principals or who are un -
able to represent themselves. We see this kind of representation , for ex-
ample , when lawyers or social workers are made the trustees of children or
invalids and where the lawyers’ or social workers’ responsibilities include ad -
vocating on behalf of the children or invalids before third parties. The PA
relationships between trustees and their authorizes may set the representa -
tion relationship into motion , but the representation relationships them -
selves are not PA relationships: trustees are representing others different
from the principals who authorized them . Similarly, within the political
realm , political representatives are often cast as trustees who are responsible
for representing the broader political community and not just the parochial
interests and expressed preferences of voting constituents. Being a good
trustee might , in fact , require that an official depart from the interests of
constituents so long as the official remains within the jurisdictional bounds
of the office. This disjuncture between the wider population and the voting
constituency presents a problem for accountability in the PA framework . The
PA model offers few resources for assessing how, if at all , representatives
might be accountable to the nonconstituents whose interests they serve in
their efforts to advance the general good. In such situations , it might be
tempting to construe the entire political community as a principal , but this
would warp the meaning of principal beyond the way agency theorists typi -
cally use the word: The entire community generally does not authorize a rep-
resentative; voting constituents do.
Even if elected officials do not adopt such a general outlook , many still
take it upon themselves to represent issues and viewpoints that have no
direct connection to their voting constituencies. This is , perhaps, most evi -
dent in situations involving politicians whose personal and professional
identity revolves around some minority status , whether ethnic , religious,
sexual , or political. A legislator might , for example, advocate (and be expected
to advocate) for the rights of gay men and women even when they live out-
side his / her home district . Similarly, a politician with a strong commitment
to the environment and a political persona as an environmentalist might
advocate ( and be expected to advocate ) on behalf of an environmental conser-
vation project even when it has no bearing upon his electoral constituents.
The official may feel a sense of responsibility to those nonconstituents at the
same time that those nonconstituents may feel represented because of their
identification with the official and the causes the official has taken up. This
sort of “ surrogate” or identification - based representation falls outside the
conventional PA dynamic.
 My main point in this section is that there are situations and paradigms of
representation in which the expectations of the representative extend beyond
traditional PA forms of accountability. If accountability is to extend to these
broader contexts it will have to be revisioned in ways that aren’ t so reliant
upon the decisive authority of principals. The focus will have to shift to more
systemic and deliberative contexts in which different standards and modal -
ities of accountability apply.

From Hierarchies to Horizontality

The preceding discussion points to the limited reach of the PA model with
regard to different conceptions of representation. It did not , however, ad -
dress the adequacy of the PA framework for modeling accountability as such .
A model can have limited reach and still be a good model. For some of its
more ardent supporters , the PA framework offers not only a way to model
one variant of democratic accountability; it offers a way to model political
accountability in general. Such a view is both unduly constraining of polit -
ical possibility and at odds with historical and conventional understanding of
the concept . The PA model operates within very narrow parameters revolving
around the establishment of clear hierarchies between principals and agents
in which the latter are supposed to serve the preferences and /or interests of
the former. In the words of Moreno, Crisp , and Shugart , three strict adherents
to the PA approach , accountability relationships are “ vertical relations between
subordinate agents and superior principals." Political accountability within
this framework can only exist when such hierarchies are in place. This has
implications for how we address accountability deficits. If hierarchies are
absent in the very spaces in which greater accountability is desired , the PA
solution requires that such hierarchies be established. We need to determine
who the principal is and how the agent is expected to pursue that principal 's
interests. This perspective percolates through discussions of how to generate
accountable governance in world politics as well as in discussions of how to
rectify accountability deficits domestically.
 This approach sidesteps many of the ambiguities of political authority that
trouble democratic politics. One benefit is that it brings greater analytic pre-
cision to the study of accountability in select contexts. This added precision ,
however, comes at the cost of excluding a slew of political dynamics and rela -
tionships that would qualify as accountability by most commonplace and his-
torical understandings of the term. In particular, the model proves ill -suited
for situations in which authority is shared and accountability is mutual. Many
institutions commonly associated with political accountability fall out of the
picture. Judiciaries , ombudsmen , oversight bodies , and legislative actions
such as impeachment would all be excluded . These forms of “ horizontal ac-
countability, ” as Guillermo O’ Donnell calls them , are important supple-
ments to the “ vertical accountability ” that agency theorists analyze between
citizens and their representatives. Nonetheless , these horizontal relations
would not qualify as accountability at all within the PA model because they
do not conform to the hierarchies of the PA relationship. Oversight bodies
and judiciaries typically do not authorize the actors they investigate. In fact ,
in many cases , authorization actually goes in the opposite direction . Om -
budsmen , for instance, are often authorized by the very bodies they are
expected to oversee. From a strict PA perspective, as Moreno, Crisp , and
Shugart have articulated , the idea of “ horizontal accountability” is an oxy-
moron because accountability implies hierarchy whereas the separation of
powers implies relations among equals. For them , oversight bodies play a
supporting role in accountability processes ( e .g., by providing information ) ,
but they do not themselves carry out accountability because they are not prin -
cipals and they lack the formal authority to withdraw delegated powers.
Rather than “ horizontal accountability ” they opt for the term “ horizontal
exchanges" to describe these interbranch relations. This is more than just
semantics, given the normative importance accorded to accountability as a
source of political legitimacy. This definition has implications for democratic
legitimation and our sense of political possibility: How we understand ac-
countability shapes how we conceive solutions for accountability deficits.
There is arbitrariness to these restrictions. Just because one branch of gov-
—
ernment does not derive its authority from the others does not except by this
—
rather idiosyncratic definition mean that there can be no accountability
between them . Government officials may be formally obligated to answer
before interstate bodies even if they are not dependent upon those bodies for
their authority. Moreover, just because an oversight body cannot de-authorize
the actors it investigates does not mean it delivers no sanctions. Many of these
horizontal relations perform all the functions of accountability. They investi -
gate. They obligate powerful actors to answer for their behavior. They deliver
sanctions according to public standards of acceptable behavior. While this is
not true for all institutional checks and balances, it is true for some.
 Horizontal forms of accountability are also reflected in participatory mod -
els of democracy. Participatory democracy reflects a mode of democratic gov-
ernance organized not around hierarchies of political representation but
around the direct involvement of free and equal citizens in governance
decisions. Citizens themselves are sources of governance. They are also ob-
jects of accountability, but not in the same way that constituents might hold a
representative to account. Democratic accountability is found in mutual rela -
tions among citizens rather than between citizens and their delegates. This
mutual accountability of citizens to citizens departs from the PA framework .
It lacks a clear delcgative hierarchy: I am no more my fellow citizen’s principal
than she is my master. The fact that I hold someone else to account for her
behavior does not mean that she can’ t also hold me to account in a reciprocal
fashion . This is accountability with a different modality. It is nonhierarchical.
It does not assume that one citizen should serve the interests of another. And
it does not rely on the authorization and de-authorization as the primary mode
of interaction.
Horizontalforms of accountability can also be found outside of the formal
governmental sector among partnering corporate and nongovernmental orga -
nizations. In the field of corporate accountability, for example, numerous
partnerships have been forged between governments , civil society, and busi -
ness. Examples include the Global Reporting Initiative , the Ethical Trading
Initiative, and Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, among others.
These multistakeholder initiatives are set up on a voluntary basis with the
express purpose of enacting greater accountability in the economy. The whole
point of these initiatives is to make participants answerable to one another for
their behavior, yet the relationship among participants in no way reflects a
hierarchical PA relationship in which one stakeholder is expected to serve the
interests or preferences of another. Likewise, within civil society, great strides
have been taken to improve the accountability of nongovernmental organiza -
tions by developing relations of mutual accountability between cooperating
organizations. Such efforts at mutual accountability are spreading through
the advocacy of organizations like CIVICUS, OneWorld Trust , and Account -
Ability, which collect and distribute examples and standards of best account -
ability practices. Relations among cooperating organizations are often not
contractual , obligations among them are often loosely defined , and cooperat -
ing organizations typically lack a shared hierarchy. It is because of these char-
acteristics ( not despite them ) that these partnerships are innovating new
forms of mutual accountability.
The Limits of Discipline and Control
Beyond the issues of its reach and its heavy reliance upon hierarchy, the PA
model also reflects a narrow disciplinary focus that crowds out several of
accountability 's more generative possibilities. The principal-agent model re -
duces accountability to relationships of discipline and control . This is due
largely to the rigid instrumentality built into the framework. The entire prob-
lematic is structured around the need to close the distance between the prin -
cipal's interests or preferences and the agent’s actions. The agent is defined
functionally as an instrument of the principal. Accountability is consequently
conceived as a way to manipulate rewards and punishments , visibilities and
disciplines , to make the agent fulfill her function . Electoral accountability is
correspondingly reduced to a calculus in which voters tabulate and compare
politicians' performance against the expectations laid out when they took of -
fice and against citizens’ preexisting preferences and perceived interests.
As important as popular control is for democratic accountability and for
democratic governance more generally, it does not exhaust accountability’s
democratic potentials. Among other things , agency theory ’s exclusive focus
on discipline and control is historically myopic. For example , as I describe in
the following chapter, democratic accountability in ancient Athens provided
a way to spread power across the demos in ways that reinforced principles of
political equality and that helped foster public mindedness , reciprocity, and
public communication . Democratic accountability was neither a way for the
citizens to be represented in government , nor simply a way to exercise
power over government . It was a form of public empowerment. Through
accountability relations , citizens developed the power to work collectively to
solve shared problems and to define the meaning and values of citizenship
and community. Social discipline and control were certainly part of this dy-
namic , but they were not the most important dimensions.
Relatedly, rational choice assumptions underlying the model may be
useful for modeling strategic behavior, but they also empty out the depth of
human character and the complexity of social relations that constitute the fab-
ric of democratic politics. By emphasizing the principal’s predetermined pref-
erences and interests within a functional and disciplinary framework , the PA
model proves overly rigid when dealing with the shifting ground of identities,
interests , and influence that characterize democratic relations. Citizen prefer-
ences, identifications , and power fluctuate. Rather than predating democracy,
these often acquire shape through democratic interactions and , indeed ,
through the experience of being held to account by others. With its focus on
discipline and control and on the need to enforce predetermined obligations
defined around the principal's authority, agency theory offers little recognition
of democratic accountability’s nondisciplinary constitutive functions. Instead
of seeing accountability solely as a punitive mechanism to close gaps between
government and citizens, we might see it as contributing to the formation of
public opinion and community solidarity.
 When politicians come before the public to explain their behaviors,
whether as part of the electoral process or in other sorts of public hearings , it
-
can significantly affect citizens’ attitudes and identifications. So , too , can con
frontations and discussions in the public sphere , where citizens and nonciti -
zens answer before one another. Agency theorists tend to approach the
malleability of preferences cynically as a source of political manipulation . The
reality is more complex . As deliberative democrats have argued , and as I dis-
cuss in chapter 4 , deliberative exchanges that emerge when public officials
answer publicly for policy decisions can generate new understandings of
social problems and new outlooks on the constraints and opportunities avail -
able for addressing those problems. This is especially evident if we choose to
emphasize accountability 's conceptual affinity with answerability rather than
punishability alone. Obligating representatives to answer before the public
can do more than encourage them to serve citizens’ preferences. It can also
bring about transformations in public consciousness while fostering improved
understanding of shared problems. Accountability is , thus, important not
simply because it helps to mold public officials' behavior around predeter-
mined citizen preferences , but because it helps generate and maintain public
spheres in which citizens deliberate and form preferences about collective
and individual goods and develop new understandings of their interests.
Again , this is not to deny the importance of elections as a source of control ,
nor is it to deny that errant officials may abuse their positions. It is, rather, to
insist that discipline and control do not exhaust democratic accountability’s
meanings and applications. These will be major themes in the following chap-
ters. Here, I have only gestured to them in broad outline.
Institutional Bias and the Question of Standards
A final issue I wish to highlight pertains to an institutional bias implicit
within the PA framework . In order for the model to come into effect , the PA
relationship must first be established. The model needs to resolve who its
actors are. It needs to determine who is and is not an acceptable agent , who
gets to be a principal and wrho does not , and what standards are to be upheld.
Stated differently, the model is based upon roles and obligations that are pre -
determined. The principal must already have acquired the authority to hold to
account and the agent must already have acquired the obligations for which
he must account to the principal. For the PA model , such determinations are
exogenous to the accountability dynamic. Finding the right principal must be
done separately from and prior to democratic accountability practices. For
this reason , accountability comes to be regarded as “ a property of institutional
structures." Proponents of the model tend to turn their eyes inward , dis -
counting accountability demands that come from outside formal institutional
frameworks or that do not conform to accepted standards of participation . The
presence or absence of institutional recognition cannot resolve the normative
—
question of whether an accountability demand is warranted institutions can
be illegitimate as readily as the claims of extra -institutional actors can . Within
the PA model , however, institutional recognition does seem to resolve whether
a practice is considered an act of accountability at all . Even if a group’s efforts
at upholding accountability are normatively justified and democratically moti -
vated , they do not qualify as accountability within the PA model unless the
group’s authority to exact accountability is institutionally recognized . Those
demanding accountability from outside consensual structures of governance
-
are rendered “ would be principals”
— mere principals in waiting. Whereas
-
bona fide principals hold power to account, would be principals merely seek
to do so.
 My concern is that the PA framework contributes to the unwarranted de-
legitimization of external actors and , more importantly, that it limits our ability
to demand accountability for the accountability failures of institutional status
quos. An example will help illustrate. Take the World Bank. As an international
institution and bank charged with promoting development , the Bank has both
propagated accountability discourse and been confronted with it . Concerned
with poor outcomes after decades of lending in the poorest countries, the Bank
has , since the early 1990s , called for improved accountability within borrowing
countries as a way to encourage good governance and more effective lending.
The Bank has also been the object of sharp criticism from coalitions of NGOs
and grassroots groups who charge that the Bank is insufficiently accountable
to the populations affected by its policies at the same time that it is overly
accountable to financial elite. Reflecting such critiques, numerous community
movements have taken direct action , staging protests , confronting Bank lead -
.
ership and demanding answers for Bank policies. Faced with such protest
and the extensive criticism about its lack of accountability, the Bank has vigor-
ously defended its organizational structure and lending practices, pointing to
the long and complex system of accountability relations internal to its opera -
tion . Members of the Bank staff are appointed by and accountable to the Bank
president. The president is appointed by and accountable to executive direc-
tors. Executive directors are appointed by either the five members with the
largest shares or by governors appointed by other members. They, in turn , are
accountable to the board of governors. All governors are appointed and
accountable to their respective national governments, most of which are ulti -
mately accountable to the public who elects them . This complex accountability
system internal to the Bank is, according to the Bank’s former chief counsel ,
befitting of an international institution. It also stands in contrast to the actions
of unauthorized groups that , in the name of the public interest , use extra -
institutional channels to demand direct accountability to the public. For
many of the protesters , their efforts to hold the Bank directly accountable to
the public is itself an expression of democratic accountability. For the World
Bank , those same efforts manifest a dangerous naivete about the complex
inner workings of institutions and a usurpation of legitimate institutional
authority. For the Bank , its internal accountability structure is a source of legit-
imation . For the protesters , the exclusionary nature of that structure is a source
of illegitimacy.
 Even if we reject the tactics these external actors deploy, there is a sense in
which protestors of the World Bank are already holding the Bank to account.
They identify and expose the effects of World Bank lending, and they impose
social sanctions through name-and -shame tactics as well as by targeting the
public credibility of the Bank . While the Bank does not aspire to be a demo-
cratic institution per se, it also clearly does not wish to sever its link to the le-
gitimacy afforded by public support . The protestors also uphold public
accountability standards: both wider democratic norms and , in some cases,
the World Bank’s own standards. Despite this , protestors’ efforts would not be
recognized as accountability at all within the PA framework because the pro-
testors are not institutionally recognized as principals.
A similar argument can be applied to representative democracy. It is
commonly presumed that voting constituents are the ones to whom repre-
sentatives should account . Because noncitizens , nonvoting citizens , and
nonconstituents are not principals , they would be excluded as accountability
actors , as would many dissidents, advocacy groups , and enactors of civil dis-
obedience who would use accountability demands to challenge the legiti -
macy of existing power arrangements. Within the PA model , these actors fall
out of the accountability equation even though they seem to enact account -
ability in each of its essential dimensions. Much like the World Bank protes-
tors I described earlier, they use the public sphere to compel powerful actors
to answer to the public. They expose behavior. They use social pressure to
deliver sanctions for that behavior as a way to uphold broader social stan -
dards and in some cases the standards of the governance bodies themselves.
 Moreover, even as external nonprincipal actors are denied an account -
ability role, internal actors who do qualify as principals arc in effect safe-
guarded from accountability. At bottom , the PA model revolves around the
assertion of foundational authority. Because it needs to assume authoritative
principals, it provides few resources for comprehending principals as them -
selves objects of accountability. In the event that the principal is the agent of
another principal , the problem of unaccountable authority is merely pushed
back until a final authority can be found. In a certain manner, the linearity of
the PA model lends itself to retrenchment of popular sovereignty as a founda -
tion of democratically accountable governance. Within conventional demo-
cratic theory, the ultimate principal is the demos, the political community of
citizens that authorizes government in the final instance. As the ultimate
principal , the citizenry, like Hobbes's sovereign , necessarily stands outside
accountability— it is accountable to no one (save God ). If the electorate is the
final principal , it is not clear who could hold it to account for its treatment of
outsiders or even its own members.
Instead of conceiving democratic accountability primarily as the account -
ability of government to a preconstituted sovereign demos ( the ultimate prin -
cipal ) , I suggest that the democratic function of accountability practices also
resides in the constituting and de-constituting of democratic publics. As
agency theorists themselves have shown so effectively, democratic account -
ability institutions often fail. They fail to accurately expose wrongdoing. They
fail to compel resistant government officials to publicly answer for their
behavior. They fail to deliver accurate and effective sanctions for abuses of
power. Beyond this , they can also fail at the constitutional level to the extent
that accountability mechanisms don’ t involve the right actors or standards.
The democratic accountability norm can be dissonant with the institutions
charged with upholding it. The external accountability initiatives of nonprin -
cipals can play an indispensable role in illuminating and stimulating redress
for such failures. In this respect , they are invaluable sources of institutional
reflexivity, offering a way to call institutionalized accountability frameworks
and authorities themselves into account. In this book , I use the expression
critical accountability to refer to accountability practices that function in this
way to contest the authority of existing regimes and to challenge institutional -
ized accountability frameworks. As Kate MacDonald has argued , this may
even entail attempting to hold powerful actors to account according to stan -
dards that are not (or not yet ) fully recognized within the institutional status
quo. Accountability might in fact be demanded because formal accountability
frameworks are absent or inadequate. Environmental activists, for instance,
have managed to exact accountability from governments and corporate actors
for past actions whose effects won't be felt for generations and according to
evolving standards that didn’ t exist even a decade ago.
 Formal accountability standards are rarely consensual. When officials
come before the public to account for their positions , rarely is there only one
mutually accepted criteria for evaluating their behavior. More often , actual
accountability standards are multiple, shifting, and conflicting. Although citi -
zens might agree that it is unacceptable for a politician to siphon public funds
into a private family venture, they are typically much more divided when it
comes to evaluating policy performance. This is compounded when many
different policies are involved . Such is generally the case in electoral cam -
paigns in which the criticisms and judgments come from many sides. The
most crucial question is often not which accountability standards are legiti -
mate but rather which standards will become dominant or hegemonic. The
PA model construes democratic accountability as taking place only after the
struggle over standards has been resolved with convergence around a singular
institutionalized set of policy metrics. I believe, instead , that we need to recog-
nize democratic accountability as participating in the contest. Both internal
and external accountability initiatives participate in the struggle over which
standards will prevail.
The PA model has both strengths and weaknesses. On one hand it reso-
nates with some traditional understandings of accountability within represen -
tative democracy. In particular, it proves tremendously useful for evaluating
the difficulties of using electoral accountability to exert popular control over
government officials. On the other hand , the framework paints at best a
limited picture of what democratic accountability can entail . As Mark Twain
famously wrote, “ to a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail.” The
PA model offers some very useful analytic tools. It allows us to do some fan -
tastic hammering. It allows us to see into many of the epistemic and incentive
problems of electoral politics. Nonetheless , just because a screw can be ham -
mered does not make it into a nail. It is a mistake to define democratic ac-
countability as a PA relationship, even if the framework helps us appreciate
some of the concept’s applications within select , hierarchical contexts. Gener-
ating formal accountability relationships with clear principals and agents and
clear standards and expectations may be an important way to foster demo-
cratic accountability on the world stage , but it does not exhaust the issue. In
short , we need to be mindful not only of the potential and pitfalls of different
democratic accountability institutions but also of the pitfalls of adopting too
limited an approach to democratic accountability’s meanings and applica -
tions. In Part II , I develop a more holistic understanding of democratic ac-
countability as more than an institutional source of discipline and control.