Global accountabilities : participation, pluralism, and public ethics / edited by Alnoor Ebrahim and Edward Weisband.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Ebrahim, Alnoor.

Weisband, Edward, 1939-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Non-governmental organizations--Evaluation.

Non-governmental organizations.

International business enterprises--Evaluation.

International business enterprises.

Performance standards.

Physical Description:

xiii, 352 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Summary:

Accountability is seen as an essential feature of governments, businesses, and NGOs. This volume treats it as a socially constructed means of control that can be used by the weak as well as the powerful. It contributes analytical depth to the diverse debates on accountability in modern organizations by exploring its nature, forms, and impacts in civil society organizations, public and intergovernmental agencies, and private corporations. The contributors draw from a range of disciplines to demonstrate the inadequacy of modern rationalist prescriptions for establishing and monitoring accountability standards, arguing that accountability frameworks attached to principal-agent logics and applied universally across cultures typically fail to achieve their objectives.

Contents:

1 Introduction: forging global accountabilities / Edward Weisband, Alnoor Ebrahim 1

Part I Public accountability: participatory spheres from global to local 25

2 Multilateralism and building stronger international institutions / Ngaire Woods 27

3 Global financial governance and the problem of accountability: the role of the public sphere / Randall D. Germain 45

4 Citizen activism and public accountability: lessons from case studies in India / Anne Marie Goetz, Rob Jenkins 65

Part II Experiments in forging NGO accountability: mutuality and context 87

5 Multiparty social action and mutual accountability / L. David Brown 89

6 Not accountable to anyone? Collective action and the role of NGOs in the campaign to ban "blood diamonds" / Ian Smillie 112

7 Bringing in society, culture, and politics: values and accountability in a Bangladeshi NGO / David Lewis 131

Part III Reflective accountability: new directions for participatory practices 149

8 A rights-based approach to accountability / Lisa Jordan 151

9 Evaluation and accountability in emergency relief / Coralie Bryant 168

10 Towards a reflective accountability in NGOs / Alnoor Ebrahim 193

Part IV Global accountability frameworks and corporate social responsibility 225

11 Financial actors and instruments in the construction of global corporate social responsibility / Michael R. MacLeod 227

12 Public accountability within transnational supply chains: a global agenda for empowering Southern workers? / Kate Macdonald 252

13 Tripartite multilateralism: why corporate social responsibility is not accountability / Edward Weisband 280

14 Conclusion: prolegomena to a postmodern public ethics: images of accountability in global frames / Edward Weisband 307.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780521876476

0521876478

9780521700115

0521700116

OCLC:

85162286

Online:

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description