Does the Local Community Really Want to Hold the Authorities Accountable? Social Assessment of Local Government Accountability Mechanisms in Polish Municipalities

Accountability is a key element of the democratic system’s stability, providing transparency in decision-making, legitimizing public authorities’ decisions, and holding them accountable for performing their duties and the consequences. Despite more than three decades of democratization, accountability remains a marginal element of public life in Poland, and it is not considered an important area of scientific research. The concept is instead associated with the control or supervision of decision-makers by specialized public bodies. There is no understanding of accountability as a duty and obligation of decision-makers to explain or justify their decisions and actions to the public. The marginalization of accountability in public and political life was due to the lack of appropriate instruments to hold public authorities accountable. At the local level, the only mechanisms for holding local authorities accountable were elections and recall referendums. At the local level, there were no other institutionalized mechanisms for holding authorities accountable for their decisions and actions during their term of office. The situation changed with the adoption of the Act amending certain laws to increase citizens' participation in the process of electing, operating, and controlling public authorities (Journal of Laws 2018, item 130). This mechanism is in line with the theoretical assumptions of the accountability process (Bovens, 2007; Brandsma & Schillemans, 2013). The proposed presentation focuses on the assessment of a new accountability mechanism (i.e., a report and debate on the state of the municipality) expressed by local communities in the researched municipalities. Based on qualitative research, the authors seek to answer the following questions: How do members of local communities understand the concept of accountability? Does the local community see a need to hold local authorities accountable during their term of office? Are local communities aware of the possibility of participating in holding authorities accountable? How do municipal residents assess the new accountability mechanism, which can be understood as a report and a debate on the municipality's state? The authors will present the results of qualitative research conducted through individual in-depth interviews and focus group interviews (FGI) conducted in 2024-2025 across 14 municipalities in Poland. The research was conducted as part of a project Accountability of local authorities. The report and debate on the state of a municipality as a tool for accountability (NCN No. 2022/45/B/HS5/00084). The project is funded by the National Science Centre, Poland and managed by prof. Agnieszka Pawłowska (University of Rzeszów). Preliminary results point to the following: a) local communities don't really get accountability, thinking it's just about control and punishing decision-makers, b) the report and the debate on it are still unknown to local communities, despite the fact that this solution has been in place in Polish municipalities for several years, c) in the opinion of the surveyed residents of municipalities, the only way to “hold” the authorities accountable, understood as punishing them for actions that do not meet the expectations of local communities, is through elections. Panel: 7. Engaging dissatisfied citizens: participatory practices in Central and Eastern Europe