This chapter demonstrates the utility of adopting a ‘systemic’ view of accountability mechanisms by analysing the operation of the mechanisms which were brought to bear in three real-world scenarios of government wrongdoing and maladministration. So, for example, this chapter notes that anti-corruption commissions and the criminal law can operate in a staged and co-operative manner, and that judicial review and tort law can operate in an interdependent manner. This chapter makes clear that any potential deficits and overloads identified using an accountability benchmark may be resolved or ameliorated by mapping out the ways in which accountability mechanisms interact with one another.

This chapter explores the first key idea that must be considered in order to understand accountability mechanisms as a system, which is to appreciate that the system strikes a delicate balance of features as between mechanisms. In many cases, claims about accountability deficits or overload rest on assumptions about particular ‘strengths’ or ‘weaknesses’ of a mechanism. For instance, the high costs of legal proceedings might be cast as a ‘weakness’ of that accountability mechanism and therefore as an accountability deficit. The argument made in this chapter is that these features must be contextualised within the system before such a claim can be made, as the ‘weaknesses’ in one mechanism might be ameliorated by the ‘strengths’ in another. The features reviewed include accessibility, cost, flexibility, coerciveness, autonomy, independence and permanence.

Part three of this book unpacks the second hidden assumption underpinning claims of accountability deficit and overload, which is that the claimant has considered all available accountability mechanisms and identified either a gap or overlap in the operation of that system. The chapters in this part explore the ideas that must be addressed in order to conceive of accountability mechanisms as a system.

This chapter explores the second key challenge in mapping out accountability mechanisms as a system, which is to appreciate the nature of the relationships between them. Often, claims of accountability deficit and overload presuppose that mechanisms operate entirely independently from one another. However, on closer inspection it is possible to see that there is a range of dynamics in play. In addition to independent mechanisms, this chapter canvasses situations where mechanisms may operate in a mutually exclusive, staged, interdependent and co-operative manner.