Democratic systems requires accountability procedures for limiting administrative discretion, fulfilling political principal’s right to obtain information from bureaucratic agent. In concomitance with the rise of regulatory state, several types of such requirements have been adopted in many Western democracies. However, a degree of variation in governments’ selection of control mechanisms still persists. Through a sample of several OECD member states, this paper maps the administrative rules and procedures allowing governments to control law- making and identify cross-national patterns of accountability. In order to facilitate a systematic review of the existing accountability tools utilised by the core executives, this paper proposes a classification of administrative procedures according to typologies of control mechanisms and principals designated to receive information from regulators. Finally, through qualitative comparative analysis possible trade-offs among different types of control mechanism is also considered.
