Lee, M; (2017) Accountability and co-production beyond courts: the role of the European Ombudsman. In: Regulating risks in the European Union:The co-production of expert and executive power. (pp. 217-240). Hart Publishing: Oxford, UK.

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Abstract

The ‘ombudsman institution’ is frequently understood as an institution of accountability. This paper attempts to explore some of the ways in which the European Ombudsman (EO) might contribute to accountability. The particular context for this examination is the co-production of expert and executive authority. I am concerned to reflect upon the insight that not only are ‘facts’ socially constructed, but that ‘society’ does not exist independently of and prior to the facts; social and natural worlds are mutually constitutive. In respect of expertise and executives, neither form of authority is independent of the other, and each both shapes and rests upon the other; neither straightforwardly controls the other or has an autonomous definition of the purpose of their interactions. This perspective raises particular (if not unique) challenges for accountability: at its simplest, when power is co-produced, it is not easy to see where or by whom it is exercised, and accordingly how or with whom accountability relationships might most appropriately be constructed.

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