Who are the policy workers, and what are they doing? Citizen’s heuristics and democratic accountability in complex governance

Two critical questions for the study of accountability in contemporary governance focus attention on the citizen rather than the official: (a) whether a citizen can identify a policy worker, that is, the bureaucrat, contractor, or other actor acting in pursuit of a legislated policy goal, and (b) whether a citizen can evaluate policy work that is done to further a legislated policy goal. Both identification and evaluation prove tricky to assess in a great deal of policy work, rendering accountability an important, but elusive, democratic value. This article provides a framework for analysts to understand when and why accountability works from a citizen’s perspective and what incentives policy workers and politicians have when it does.