Skip to main navigation Skip to search Skip to main content

Reputational drivers and deterrents of accountability: why are some EU agencies subject to more intense account-holding than others?

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Empirical studies have shown how some (semi-)independent agencies are intensely scrutinised by various public account-holders, while others are overlooked. Such variations in account-holding intensity have also been observed for EU agencies. This article aims to explain variations in the account-holding intensities that EU agencies are subject to. To this end, the account-holding that EU agencies experience from six major institutional EU account-holders has been measured based on a novel conceptualisation of ‘account-holding intensity’ as a combination of both the ‘frequency’ and the ‘diligence’ of account-holding. Based on a reputational perspective on accountability, public visibility and salience is hypothesised to drive account-holding intensity, and reputational strength and reputation-sourced authority is hypothesised to deter account-holding intensity. While reputational strength is not found to deter the overall account-holding intensities that EU agencies are subject to, results provide support for the hypothesis that public visibility and salience drive account-holding intensity.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2739-2763
Number of pages25
JournalJournal of European Public Policy
Volume30
Issue number12
Early online date6 Oct 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Funding

This article is part of the research project: Reputation Matters in the Regulatory State: Rethinking the Fundamentals of Regulatory Independence, Credibility and Accountability, funded by the European Research Council under the Horizon 2020 programme. Grant/Award Number: 716439. The author is indebted to all survey respondents who gave their valuable time to participate in this study, and he truly appreciates the great cooperation enjoyed with Thijs de Boer in jointly collecting the survey data. The author is furthermore grateful to Thijs de Boer, Madalina Busuioc, and Aaron Swaving for access to their data on the Twitter valence of EU agencies. The author wants to thank Samir Negash, Kohei Suzuki, and Thomas Schillemans for the feedback that they provided as discussants of earlier versions of this article, and he thanks the anonymous reviewers for their valuable and constructive comments. Lastly, the author is grateful to Saar Alon-Barkat, Madalina Busuioc and Dovile Rimkute for their continuous advice and guidance throughout the research process.

FundersFunder number
Kohei Suzuki
Samir Negash
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme716439
European Commission
European Research Council

    UN SDGs

    This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

    1. SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
      SDG 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

    Access to Document

    Persistent URL (handle)

    Other files and links

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Reputational drivers and deterrents of accountability: why are some EU agencies subject to more intense account-holding than others?'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.
    View full fingerprint

    Cite this