Three Roads to Political Accountability

Establishing an accountable government is a core issue for modern state governance. To achieve this goal, two fundamental questions need to be solved: (1) Who exercises power? (2) How should the power be exercised? To the first question, the electoral system offers a relatively good answer; to the second, the budgetary system offers the best answer. Through a historical and comparative analysis, this essay identifies three roads to political accountability: the European road of the nineteenth century, the American road from the founding of the United States to the reform of Progressive Era and the newly emerging Chinese road. This implies that the Western experience does not represent the only route toward political accountability. Compared with Western experience, China's state transformation since the 1980s is quite unique. A Chinese road is taking shape despite all the challenges ahead.