Does PDA Have Any Impact on Oversight?

Abstract

In the course of the past decade, international organizations, and specialized NGOs and think tanks have taken a much greater role in promoting democracy and democratic governance. They attempted to promote democracy, among other things, by strengthening legislatures and national accountability mechanisms. They endeavoured to achieve this by improving the legislatures’ ability to oversee government institutions and activities. They also examined the links between democratic accountability and public oversight. Hence, the question is: Does strengthened oversight make a difference as many experts and international organizations have assumed? This chapter attempts to answer this question.

The spirit of corruption is so inseparably interwoven with British Politics, that their ministry suppose all mankind to be governed by the same motive. They have no idea of a people submitting to even temporary inconvenience from an attachment to rights and privileges. Their plans and business are calculated by the hour and for the hour, and are uniform in nothing but the corruption which gives them birth.

—Thomas Paine, ‘The Crisis’, December 1776