50 2 CHAPTER 2 avoided to prevent negative ethical and societal effects of this introduction and use (Santoni de Sio & Mecacci, 2021). However, whereas the relationship between control and blameworthiness has been widely studied in philosophy (Fischer & Ravizza, 1998) and the relation between moral and legal culpability, its gaps, and Meaningful Human Control have been studied in relation to Autonomous Weapon Systems, an account of the relationship between accountability, its gaps, control and oversight is still missing. In the next sections we start filling this lacuna. 2.9 ACCOUNTABILITY Accountability is a key concept in political science, public management, international relations, social psychology, constitutional law and business administration literature. In the policy domain, the term accountability has two different uses. On the one hand, it is used to praise or criticize the performance of states, organizations, firms or officials regarding policy or decisions in relation to their ability and willingness to give information and explanations about their actions (‘accountability as a virtue’). Typically, in the political discourse, accountability is used to describe the fairness and equitability of good governance in which authorities are being held accountable by their citizens. In this broad sense, accountability encompasses concepts such as transparency, equity, democracy, efficiency, responsiveness, responsibility and integrity. On the other hand, in a narrow sense, accountability is also used to define the mechanisms for corporate and public governance to hold agents and organisations accountable (‘accountability as a mechanism’) (Bovens, Schillemans, & Goodin, 2014). Bovens (2007, p. 450) focuses on the latter sense of accountability and defines it as follows: ‘Accountability is a relationship between an actor and a forum, in which the actor has an obligation to explain and to justify his or her conduct, the forum can pose questions and pass judgement, and the actor may face consequences.’ The relationship between an actor and a forum is a key notion in the concept of accountability. If the explanation is inadequate, sanctions may be imposed on the actor by a forum (Bovens, 2007; Greer, Wismar, Figueras, & McKee, 2016). Figure 5 provides an overview of the relationship between the accountability elements. Accountability is not only scrutiny after the event has occurred, it also has a preventive and anticipatory use for which norms are (re)produced, internalized and adjusted by means of accountability if necessary. Similarly, in public administration, mechanisms of accountability are described in terms of an agent having to report on his or her activity to an individual, group or other entity which has the ability to impose costs to the agent (Keohane, 2003). In this sense, accountability is an agency theory approach in which the relationship between a principal and an agent is described (Hulstijn & Burgemeestre, 2014). This concept of accountability
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