Liberal democratic accountability standards and public administration

Abstract

This paper serves as a renewed call for public management scholars and public leaders in liberal democracies to be the champions of accountability standards that are explicitly and implicitly inherent to liberal democratic forms of governance. This call is particularly salient amid increasing populism, polarization, and democratic backsliding. Drawing from the historical and contemporary political and legal philosophies of small‐l liberalism and democracy advanced throughout the ages, we define a set of seven liberal democratic accountability standards focusing on matters of authority, rights, tolerance, truth claims, and professional deference. We then consider how these standards relate to some of public administration and management's ongoing considerations of the politics‐administration dichotomy, citizen engagement, and network governance, and make the case for more explicit focus on liberal democratic accountability standards in public management scholarship.