Accountability is one of the cornerstones of good governance. Establishing accountable governments is a top priority on the international development agenda. Yet, scholars and democracy practitioners know little about how accountability mechanisms develop and thus can be supported by international and national actors. The present study tackles the questions of how, and in what sequence accountability sub-types develop. We consider not only vertical (elections and political parties) and horizontal accountability (legislature, judiciary, and other oversight bodies) but also diagonal accountability (civil society and media) in both their de-jure and the de-facto dimensions. By utilizing novel sequencing methods, we study their sequential relationships in 173 countries from 1900 to the present with data from the new V-Dem dataset. Considering the long-term dimensions of institution building, this study indicates that most aspects of de-facto vertical accountability precede other forms of accountability. Effective institutions of horizontal accountability—such as vigorous parliaments and independent high courts—evolve rather late in the sequence and build on progress in many other areas.

中文翻译：

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问责序列：从法律上到事实上对政府的约束

问责制是良好治理的基石之一。建立负责任的政府是国际发展议程的重中之重。然而，学者和民主从业者对问责机制如何发展以及如何得到国际和国家行为者的支持知之甚少。本研究解决了问责子类型如何以及以何种顺序发展的问题。我们不仅考虑纵向（选举和政党）和横向问责（立法、司法和其他监督机构），还考虑对角问责（民间社会和媒体）在法律上和事实上的维度。通过利用新的测序方法，我们使用来自新 V-Dem 数据集的数据研究了从 1900 年到现在在 173 个国家/地区的顺序关系。考虑到制度建设的长期维度，本研究表明事实上的垂直问责制的大多数方面都先于其他形式的问责制。横向问责制的有效机构——例如强有力的议会和独立的高等法院——在序列中发展较晚，并在许多其他领域取得进展。