Accountability in the context of "Managerialism"

The divine right of kings is a political and religious doctrine of political legitimacy of a monarchy in post-Reformation Western Christianity culminating in the Age of Absolutism (c. 1610 – c. 1789). It is also known as the divine-right theory of kingship.

The doctrine asserts that a monarch is not accountable to any earthly authority (such as a parliament or the Pope) because their right to rule is derived from divine authority. Thus, the monarch is not subject to the will of the people, of the aristocracy, or of any other estate of the realm. It follows that only divine authority can judge a monarch, and that any attempt to depose, dethrone, resist or restrict their powers runs contrary to God's will and may constitute a sacrilegious act. It does not imply that their power is absolute.

Watchdog journalism is a form of investigative journalism in which journalists, authors or publishers of a news publication fact-check and interview political and public figures to increase accountability in democratic governance systems.

Responsible government is a conception of a system of government that embodies the principle of parliamentary accountability, the foundation of the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy. Governments (the equivalent of the executive branch) in Westminster democracies are responsible to parliament rather than to the monarch, or, in a colonial context, to the imperial government, and in a republican context, to the president, either in full or in part. If the parliament is bicameral, then the government is usually responsible first to the parliament's lower house, which is more representative than the upper house, as it usually has more members and they are always directly elected.

Responsible government and the principle of parliamentary accountability manifests itself in several ways. Firstly, ministers must account to parliament for their decisions and for the performance of their departments. This requirement to make announcements and to answer questions in parliament means that ministers must have the privileges of the floor, which are only granted to those who are members of parliament. Secondly, and most importantly, although ministers are officially appointed by the authority of the head of state and can theoretically be dismissed at the pleasure of the sovereign, they concurrently retain their office subject to their holding the confidence of the lower house of parliament. When the lower house has passed a motion of no confidence in the government, the government must ordinarily immediately resign or submit itself to the electorate in a new general election.

International criminal law (ICL) is a body of public international law designed to prohibit certain categories of conduct commonly viewed as serious atrocities and to make perpetrators of such conduct criminally accountable for their perpetration. The core crimes under international law are genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression.

Classical international law governs the relationships, rights, and responsibilities of states. After World War II, the Charter of the International Military Tribunal and the following Nuremberg trial revolutionized international law by applying its prohibitions directly to individuals, in this case the defeated leaders of Nazi Germany, thus inventing international criminal law. After being dormant for decades, international criminal law was revived in the 1990s to address the war crimes in the Yugoslav Wars and the Rwandan genocide, leading to the establishment of a permanent International Criminal Court in 2001.

Publicly funded healthcare is a form of health care financing, designed to meet the cost of all or most healthcare needs from a publicly managed fund. Usually this is under some form of democratic accountability, the right of access to which are set down in rules applying to the whole population contributing to the fund or receiving benefits from it.

The fund may be a not-for-profit trust that pays out for healthcare according to common rules established by the members or by some other democratic form. In some countries, the fund is controlled directly by the government or by an agency of the government for the benefit of the entire population. That distinguishes it from other forms of private medical insurance, the rights of access to which are subject to contractual obligations between an insured person (or their sponsor) and an insurance company, which seeks to make a profit by managing the flow of funds between funders and providers of health care services.

A command hierarchy or chain of command is a group of people who carry out orders based on others' authority within the group. Certain aspects of a command hierarchy tend to be similar, including rank, unity of command, and strict accountability. Command hierarchies are used in the military and other organizations. Systemic biases may arise in homogenous groups of command.

Journalistic ethics and standards comprise principles of ethics and good practice applicable to journalists. This subset of media ethics is known as journalism's professional "code of ethics" and the "canons of journalism". The basic codes and canons commonly appear in statements by professional journalism associations and individual print, broadcast, and online news organizations.

There are around 400 codes covering journalistic work around the world. While various codes may differ in the detail of their content and come from different cultural traditions, most share common elements that reflect values including the principles of truthfulness, accuracy and fact-based communications, independence, objectivity, impartiality, fairness, respect for others and public accountability, as these apply to the gathering, editing and dissemination of newsworthy information to the public. Some such principles are sometimes in tension with non-Western and Indigenous ways of doing journalism.

Honesty or truthfulness is a facet of moral character that connotes positive and virtuous attributes such as integrity, truthfulness, straightforwardness (including straightforwardness of conduct: earnestness), along with the absence of lying, cheating, theft, etc. Honesty also involves being trustworthy, loyal, fair, and sincere.

A reputation for honesty is denoted by terms like reputability and trustworthiness. Honesty about one's future conduct, loyalties, or commitments is called accountability, reliability, dependability, or conscientiousness.

Civil service reform is a deliberate action to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, professionalism, representativity and democratic character of a civil service, with a view to promoting better delivery of public goods and services, with increased accountability. Such actions can include data gathering and analysis, organizational restructuring, improving human resource management and training, enhancing pay and benefits while assuring sustainability under overall fiscal constraints, and strengthening measures for performance management, public participation, transparency, and combating corruption.

The academic literature on civil service reform has provided arguments and counterarguments clarifying how several approaches to reform affect the overall performance of the civil service. The increasing availability of empirical data allows to test the effectiveness of specific reforms in a given context. While designing effective civil service reforms is a tremendously complex task considering that the right mix of corruption control and performance improvements may vary greatly across and within countries, empirical as well as qualitative research can contribute to the body of evidence-based knowledge on civil service reforms in developing countries.