Articulating New Accountability Systems: Preliminary Integrated Framework

This paper has been prepared under Work Package (WP) 3 of ResIST, "Researching Inequality through Science and Technology,"  a strategic targeted research project funded by the European Commission. ResIST is working between 2006 and 2009 to:

• understand the contribution of science and technology (S&T) to the creation and maintenance of inequality within and between societies; and
• develop more inclusive S&T policies that balance growth with inequality reduction and improved accountability to the economically poor.
  

As the authors explain, the role of WP 3 is to identify and analyse the emergence and workings of accountability systems that provide for the explicit stating and framing of distributional issues related to the design, development, and social appropriation of S&T resources. "Systems of accountability are the means by which the potential distributional consequences of science and policy and practices can be recognised and assessed - and potentially incorporated - by formal elements of the political system. Accountability systems attuned to the needs of the disadvantaged are thus the prerequisite for reorienting scientific governance towards greater social inclusion in building S&T priorities and in distributing its products."

Specific research questions include: "How can we develop an understanding of the mundane and pervasive ways in which S&T developments shape the organisation of life in a variety of locales? How can we develop an understanding of the interconnected and multiple locales through which technologies move? What methods do we have available for developing appropriate policy for such interconnected locales? What would constitute appropriate mechanisms for holding so many policy locales to account? How could accountability mechanisms be developed for the benefit of those in specific locales? What methods of assessment need to be developed for considering such benefits and beneficiaries?"

According to ResIST, accountability systems embody normative assumptions about the purposes and uses of S&T. "The boundaries between alternative systems and conventional policy and practice are an important site of contestation in scientific governance and one where any reconfiguring of interests can take place." ResIST is exploring the construction of alternative accountability systems in two contexts:

1. Redistributional issues associated with the design, development, access to, and use of mundane, everyday technologies;
2. Experimental initiatives in capacity building and priority setting with the aim of remediating inequality.
   

This WP consists of two sets of case studies linked to the above-mentioned different contexts of construction of alternative accountability systems. The additional task is to elaborate an integrated framework for analysing and evaluating experiences with innovative approaches to accountability, taking into account the twin issues of capacity building and redistribution.

The first section of the document consists of a discussion of social science approaches to accountability. It focuses on the notions of:

• accountability in public: the sense in which forms of interaction are occasions of accountability.
• accountability of public: those occasions where groups of people are rendered available to be held to account through, for example, surveillance systems (airport security, CCTV cameras, speed cameras, and so on) or some other notable mechanism for accounting.
• accountability for public: those actions understood as carried out, usually by an organisation, on behalf of an often unspecified mass audience.

The conceptual issues addressed in the first section regarding accountability are revised in the second section in relation with the study of selected experiences aimed at addressing issues of inequality as they are related to the active engagement of concerned actors and public bodies and institutions. The role of S&T in these experiences is explored in this second section by identifying and characterising the procedures which allow public policies to be made publicly accountable for their effects on inequalities. Linkages are illuminated between the basic concepts of the project and current debates on democracy, citizen action, accountability, and the co-production of knowledge and social order.

The case studies considered include:

1. Textiles - "Clothing forms a ubiquitous aspect of consumer lifestyles in the developed world. However, often t-shirts are produced in developing countries, where questions are asked of labour conditions, safety and hours of work. Subsequent to use in the west, t-shirts are often donated to charities and shipped back to the developing world where they form the focus of emerging industries for accessing, distributing and owning such garments. How could these contexts of production, shipping, usage, shipping (again), re-distribution and usage (again) be connected through policy developments? Could a system of accountability be developed for encouraging the connectivity of these locales to be constituted in such a way as to be advantageous to the developing world?"

2. Vaccines - "Vaccines can form a pervasive, mundane and routine expectation within societies of the developed world (aside from questions of the reliability of MMR [measles, mumps, and rubella] and questions of the availability of flu vaccines). However, the absence of, and political controversies pertaining to, vaccines in the developing world require that many aspects of day to day routine are organised around attempts (and failures) to gain access to vaccines in appropriate settings, within appropriate time frames, for appropriate sections of a population. Much of this access and routine expectation derive from vaccine development and ownership by developed societies. How might these contexts of vaccination be drawn into a connected system of accountability? How might such a system be developed in order to enhance the health and well being of those in the developing world?"

3. E-waste - "With the growing use and disposal of IT [information technology] equipment, questions are being asked of where waste should go, how IT should be dismantled and what impacts such e-waste is having on particular locales. Currently it appears that the far-east provides the context for the development of IT, the western world provides the context for much IT use and the developing world (particularly India, China and Africa) provides the context for IT disposal. This case-study will ask: how can these contexts be drawn together through policy so that developers and users are also aware of, and perhaps more responsible for, disposal issues? What are the most appropriate ways for disposing of e-waste? Can we develop reliable mechanisms for holding to account developers, users and the contexts of disposal in order to enhance benefits of this connectivity of locales for those in the developing world?"

Next, the case study issues and areas of accountability are drawn together into an initial assessment of the likely questions to be raised in doing accountability research into science, technology, and inequality. The authors explain that work in Brazil, Spain, and Portugal, and, more generally, on comparisons of Europe and Latin America, has revealed two main grammars, associated with different political projects and to different ways of relating knowledge and addressing inequality: the hegemonic liberal-democratic project (grammar of accountability, contingently associated with citizen participation or empowerment) and the democratic-participatory project (grammar of social control, constitutively linked to participation, empowerment, capacity-building). They explain, "The coexistence of elements of these two main grammars/projects often within the same country and cutting across State institutions is a common finding of empirical research. This raises a second set of questions on the relationships between these projects and the specific configurations of policy interventions they give rise to and the emergence of new forms of collaborative knowledge-production, of citizen empowerment and capacity-building, and of effective redistributive effects."

The authors conclude that, "The experiments explored in the cases studies provide insights into the conditions under which these aims can be achieved and how they are assessed in relation to specific criteria associated with different grammars of inequality/equality and accountability."