Scandals and social accountability

Abstract

This chapter highlights a subtype of political scandal that originates in civil society initiatives. It presents the emergence and workings of social accountability politics in Latin America and analyzes the contribution of the analysis of political scandals. The politics of social accountability described a universe of civic initiatives whose common denominator was the denunciation of governmental transgressions of the rule of law in two of the areas that troubled Guillermo O´Donnell. Instead, a direct activation takes place due to the filling of legal petitions by the claimants of social accountability initiatives. Social accountability was conceived as a challenge to the pernicious role that informal institutions played in reproducing the structure of delegative democracy. Social accountability initiatives introduce a different political logic to the conventional understandings of political scandals. Social accountability exposes expand the repertoire of watchdog journalism by bringing the voices and claims of grassroots groups into the public sphere.