A few reflections on accountability

Abstract

Accountability is a form of communication between people and institutions where one is held to account by the other. Parts of the scholarship distinguish between upward and downward accountability. Upward accountability would involve acknowledgement of an authority to sanction or validate operations or claims, whereas downward accountability refers to the institution of authority being responsible to the general public for their actions. While the directionality of accountability is important, a case from Indonesia suggests that they may indeed be co-constitutive. By deliberately and publicly complying with the idea of state land ownership, and by being selective about what institutions represent 'the state', the farmers used their upward accountability to produce downward accountability in terms of recognition of their rights. The farmers exploited the separation of powers in their attempt to gain a new visibility.