Accountability, Political Views, and Bureaucratic Behavior: A Theoretical Approach
Author
Sangyub Ryu Yongjin Chang
Year
2016
Abstract
This study aims to theoretically develop a framework to predict bureaucratic behaviors with the political view dimension and the accountability dimension by adopting and extending Hirschman's (1970) exit, voice, and loyalty.
The political ideology dimension is dichotomized based on whether a bureaucrat's political ideology is congruent or incongruent with his/her overhead political principals. The bureaucratic accountability dimension is also dichotomized between accountability to the overhead political principals and accountability to the public sentiment. With the given dimensions, the exit, voice, loyalty, and silence scenarios are discussed as possible bureaucratic behaviors. In addition, the stay scenario is discussed for passive bureaucrats regardless of the two dimensions. By incorporating studies on bureaucrats' political views, accountability, and Hirschman's bureaucratic behaviors, this study expects to contribute to a better understanding of bureaucrats.
