Institutionalizing Horizontal Accountability. A Conference Report. IHS Political Science Series No. 55, February 1998

On 26–29 June 1997, the Austrian Institute for Advanced Studies (Vienna) and the National Endowment for Democracy’s International Forum for Democratic Studies (Washington, DC) cosponsored the Third Vienna Dialogue on Democracy on “Institutionalizing Horizontal Accountability: How Democracies Can Fight Corruption and the Abuse of Power.” The conference sought to address one of the most pressing concerns in young democracies, namely how state agencies can prevent other parts of the government from abusing their power or, more broadly stated, from becoming unaccountable. After an initial session of exploring the historical roots of the concept of horizontal accountability and its theoretical status within the comparative study of democratization, four sessions focused on the following institutional fields: judicial systems, electoral administration, central banks, and corruption control agencies. This report summarizes the presentations and comments made during the conference. Every effort has been made to include the most important points made during the discussions, but space and organizational considerations did not allow the reporting of every single argument or nuance