Citizen voice and state accountability: Towards ... - Capacity4Dev

19Figure 5: Social contract prepared by 2410 in ZambiaThe difference between the Sierra Leone and the Zambia types of accountability is that in the Zambiacase a contract is to be signed. However, these cases do not necessarily tell us which form of exactingaccountability is more effective than the other. It could be the case that in Sierra Leone the pressure ofquestioning during open community meetings exacts accountability effectively, whereas in Zambiapeople need something more than words to define the domain around which the representative will beheld accountable. These aspects might be traceable back to the rules in use knowledge from WGA orSCAGA analyses, but their exact nature requires close analysis of the actions of the actors involved. Inother words, exactly how the negotiations around accountability domains are constructed betweencitizens and their elected representatives requires a deeper exploration of the dynamics in question.For instance, in terms of the elected representatives who are making the promises, it is possible thatthese promises come from the interests and incentive structures that candidate MPs have formed overthe years of multiparty democracy when faced with a competitive election process. The local councillor, when anything can be said inorder to win, and as the main reason for empty promises. In this case, he meant that the focus was onwinning and then later on finding your own way to meet some of the promises or to negotiate raisedexpectations. The promises made, and hence domains of accountability, are usually not drawn fromcodified institutional responsibilities as defined in parliamentary charters or procedures. Mwananchinarratives also show that there tend to be significant differences in fulfilling obligations betweenelected representatives whose political parties have won the election and those whose parties haverelationships with constituencies.In terms of sanctions from citizens on state actors, their effectiveness depends on the context and thestate actor in question, and the incentive structures in which they are operating. In the Sierra Leonecase, for instance, we do not know how the girl and her school or community will sanction the electedrepresentative if he does not deliver if the conversation cited above ends up with the MP makinganother promise and not delivering. The conversation also does not tell us if the girl and her communitycan sanction the MP on his new promise. It is possible that MPs can go on making promise afterpromise, with promises becoming ways of accounting and no mechanisms to break the trend. In thisregard, Leh Wi Tok has to explore the process after the observed engagement. However, as alsopointed about above, it could be that the MP is seeing more than a girl standing up and asking the