Accountability and Governance under the New Regulatory State

Source: (1999) Australian Journal of Public Administration. 58(1): 90-94.

According to John Braithwaite, we live today in what scholars in his field increasingly refer to as a new regulatory state. In this state many formerly public functions are being privatized (e.g., police and prisons). Yet this new state is characterized not so much by privatization and state deregulation but by privatization and state regulation. The realities of the new regulatory state, asserts Braithwaite, pose severe accountability problems for privatized functions. Braithwaite explores these realities and the resultant accountability problems, and he proposes two civic republican answers to the questions of accountability.