Accountability: To whom, in relation to what, and why?

The increasing demands on accountability as a concept, have led to concerns that its meaning has been lost in this expansion, and that its human, political and economic costs might have become too high. The aim of this collection of articles is to examine the state of the art of accountability, in relation to its numerous aspects, its deficits and overloads, as well as new applications and innovative approaches to it. This introductory paper foregrounds the contributions that follow, by addressing a beginning set of questions: - What does accountability mean now and how has this changed? - What different purposes can and should accountability serve? - To whom should governments and public sector organizations be accountable? Our introduction then provides a brief summary of each of the contributions