reuse, even if they have nothing to do with public accountability.”<sup>40</sup> As a result of this “new ambigutiy,” Yu and Robinson argue that the release of Open Data, or the creation of special websites and OGD portals, may be enough to deem a government “open”—but may not actually make it more transparent or accountable. This distinction between the terms—as well as the distinctions related to “clear” and “opaque” transparency noted above—suggest that researchers cannot assume a merely linear relationship between these concepts. Rather, as noted by Kosack and Fung (2019), these relationships are often intermediated by a number of contextual factors that determine the extent to which information can effectively inform individual choices, assist with collaborative problem solving, increase pressure on service providers, enable top-down reforms, as well as support countervailing power structures.<sup>41</sup> The central research question engages with the debate on what constitutes accountaiblity, including public sector accountability more specifically. However, just as transparency and OGD have a wide variety of interpretations, the concept of accountability is equally challenging to define. A very broad and useful definition is provided by Tisné (2010), who notes that: “Accountability refers to the process of holding actors responsible for their actions...it is the concept that individuals, agencies, and organizations (public, private, and civil society) are held responsible for executing their powers according to a certain standard (whether set mutually or not).”<sup>42</sup> Building on the conception of accountability as a process, there is considerable debate in the literature regarding how these mechanisms function over time and with respect to different actors. Using a principleagent framework, the World Bank has conceptualized accountability as a “set of relationships among actors (e.g. individuals, agencies, and organizations)—both public and private—responsible for their actions and executing their powers according to a certain standard”.<sup>43</sup> Such a rationale assumes that principles— namely, citizens—delegate their sovereignty to elected representatives to undertake certain public governance responsibilities as well as to allocate the resources—in the form of taxes and transfers—to pay for these services. As agents, these actors—namely, politicians, policy makers, and providers—are responsible to perform the delegated tasks and to inform the principle about their performance. Based on this information, the principles can then enforce sanctions and rewards on the agents, both through electoral and non-electoral channels.

Challenging the functioning of this principle-agent relationship, the World Bank’s 2017 _World Development Report_<sup>_44_</sup> identifies a number of “power asymmetries,” which may emerge. These include: (i) “exclusion,” whereby certain individuals and groups may not enjoy the same access to certain services; (ii) “capture,” whereby elite individuals or groups influence politicians to adopt policies that serve a narrow special interest, often at odds with the public good; and (iii) “clientelism,” whereby political support is exchanged for preferential access to certain goods and services.<sup>45</sup> Similar aberrations are noted by Devarajan and Khemani (2016), who describe how such forms of “unhealthy political engagement” can similarly “invert” the principle-agent relationships between citizens and government officials.<sup>46</sup> Other authors note that government transparency and government accountability are often conflated at the conceptual level, and there is a general predisposition to assume that transparency automatically leads to

> 40 H. Yu and D. Robinson, “The New Ambiguity of Open Government,” _UCLA. L. Rev. Disc_ (2012) at p. 1.

> 41 Stephen Kosack and Archon Fung, Does Transparency Improve Governance? (May 2014). Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 17, pp. 65-87, 2014.

> 42 M. Tisné, “Transparency, Participation and Accountability: Definitions,” unpublished Background Note for Transparency and Accountability Initiative, Institute of Development Studies (2010).

> 43 World Bank. Making Services Work for Poor People. World Development Report 2004.

> 44 World Bank. Governance and the Law. World Development Report 2017.

> 45 WDR 2017 (p.11).

> 46 Shantayanan Devarajan, and Stuti Khemani. 2016. “If politics is the problem, how can external actors be part of the solution?” Policy Research working paper; no. WPS 7761. Washington, D.C. World Bank Group.

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