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What Makes Public Accounts Committees Work? A Comparative Analysis
Author(s) -
Pelizzo Riccardo,
Stapenhurst Rick,
Sahgal Vinod,
Woodley William
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
politics and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.259
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1747-1346
pISSN - 1555-5623
DOI - 10.1111/j.1747-1346.2006.00040.x
Subject(s) - commonwealth , work (physics) , government (linguistics) , public administration , political science , e government , public relations , accounting , business , law , information and communications technology , engineering , mechanical engineering , linguistics , philosophy
This article investigates whether and under what conditions Public Accounts Committees (PACs) are able to scrutinize government accounts. In doing so, we analyze survey data from 51 Commonwealth countries collected by the World Bank Institute in 2002. We find that the relationship between the formal powers of the PACs and their successful performance is conditional. Specifically, we argue that the success of PACs depend on the behavior of committee members, on the availability of independent sources of information, and on the media’s interest in scrutinizing government accounts.