5XÉçÇø

Corruption, authoritarianism, and lack of political accountability have characterized many postcolonial regimes. This panel asks: How have activists and intellectuals in formerly colonized parts of the world conceptualized accountable government for their independent countries? Accountable government means that the rulers believe that they are responsible to the people they govern and put the people’s interests above their own. In the postcolonial context, this may mean protecting its people from neocolonialism and exploitation by the Global North. Government accountability is typically enforced through transparent elections, a free press, and institutional checks and balances, but can also be promoted through moral education, such as in Confucian societies. Colonized and formerly colonized peoples have debated theories and practices of government accountability with their own compatriots but also with thinkers from other nations at conferences (such as the Bandung Conference of 1955 and the Afro-Asia Writers Conferences in the 1960s and at more recent forums such as the African Peer Review Mechanism Forum and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance which convenes leaders from Africa, Asia, and Latin America). This panel welcomes papers that engage with how thinkers in the Global South generate ideas about political accountability. It is also interested in how such thinkers borrow from a variety of intellectual traditions (their own, other non-Europeans, and Europeans) to inform their theories and practices of accountability.