What is Needed to Create Real Political Accountability?

This entry is part 3 of 11 in the series Real Accountability

In this article, we’ll look at how the missing parts of our usual definition of political accountability are needed. They are vital.

In the last article, we looked at how the usual definition of political accountability was incomplete- it left out two of the three parts of true accountability. The first missing part is how we, the people, could take the part of the boss in a relationship of accountability. The second part is the essence of accountability, answerability, having politicians account to us for their progress on the issues we say are important.

We saw that true accountability, like one has with a boss is:

  • the boss guiding the worker and having expectations
  • the worker answering the boss’ questions and being evaluated by the boss
  • the boss being able to fire the worker

Usually we just think of political accountability as the last part, being able to elect the representatives of our choice. And even on that third point, American elections fall short, because the parties dominate the elections, and big-money dominates the parties.

We’ll take a close look at each needed part:

In the next 3 posts, we’ll look at each of these questions about what is needed for true political accountability:

  1. How can we voters be the boss? How can we know what we collectively want, guide our representatives and know what results to expect?
  2. How can we get politicians to answer our questions so we can evaluate them?
  3. How can we have real competition in elections and free ourselves from the domination of the wealthy?

A real solution

These are the questions that have driven PeopleCount.org’s design. This is a real solution to our political problems.

It’s “real” in the sense that it’s doable, it’s workable. It’ll take less effort than a single congressional campaign. It’ll leverage the power of communication and the power of the web. It requires no laws to succeed. Probably certain changes in law will help, but it’ll work well enough to cause Congress to pass those laws.

In the next post we’ll look at how to build the first part of accountability, the foundational relationship, where the voters are the boss.

Series Navigation<< Can you Imagine Real Political Accountability?Congress Accountable to Citizens – the Boss/Employee Relationship >>
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About Rand Strauss

Rand Strauss is the Founder of PeopleCount.org, a nonpartisan plan to enable the public to communicate constructively with each other and government by taking stands on crucial political issues. It will enable us to hold government accountable and have it be an expression of our will. Connect with Rand and PeopleCount.org on Facebook. Or leave a comment on an article (they won't display until approved.)

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