Compare methods

	Principal-Agent Analysis in the Public Sector	Accountability Mechanism Analysis
Field	Public Administration	Public Administration
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1984	2007
Originator	Terry M. Moe	Mark Bovens
Type	Institutional-economics analysis	Conceptual accountability assessment framework
Seminal source	Moe, T. M. (1984). The New Economics of Organization. American Journal of Political Science, 28(4), 739–777.	Bovens, M. (2007). Analysing and Assessing Accountability: A Conceptual Framework. European Law Journal, 13(4), 447–468.
Aliases	Public Principal-Agent Analysis, Agency Theory in Government, Political Control Delegation Analysis	Accountability Assessment Framework, Bovens Accountability Analysis, Public Accountability Mechanism Analysis
Related	4	4
Summary	Principal-agent analysis in the public sector applies agency theory to the chains of delegation that run through government — from voters to legislators, legislators to executives, and executives to bureaucracies. Terry Moe's 1984 article The New Economics of Organization brought this institutional-economics lens into the study of public bureaucracy, asking how political principals can control agents who have their own interests and superior information. The method identifies the principal and agent, specifies how their goals diverge, characterises the information asymmetry between them, and examines the control mechanisms principals use to limit agency losses. Its purpose is to explain bureaucratic behaviour and the design of oversight as the predictable result of delegation under conflicting incentives.	Accountability mechanism analysis provides a structured way to identify, describe and evaluate the relationships through which public actors must explain and justify their conduct to others. Mark Bovens, in his 2007 conceptual framework, defines accountability narrowly as a relationship in which an actor has an obligation to render an account of conduct to a forum that can pose questions, pass judgement, and impose consequences. The method first maps these relationships, then classifies them by the type of forum and obligation, and finally assesses them against political, constitutional and learning perspectives. Its purpose is to bring analytical precision to a concept that is otherwise used as a vague synonym for good governance.