The accountability of non-governmental actors in the digital sphere: A theoretical framework

• Autores: Mark Dawson
• Localización: European Law Journal, ISSN-e 1468-0386, Vol. 29, Nº. 1-2, 2023 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Special Issue:Law and common good in the digital age: Where art thou?), págs. 78-90
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The last decade has seen increasing demands for greater accountability in digital governance. What,however, does accountability require and what normative goods does it serve? This article develops ageneral framework for assessing digital accountability focused on four normative goods: openness,non-arbitrariness, effectiveness and publicness. As the article will evidence, claims for digital account-ability often refer to deficits relating to one or more of these goods. While scholarly attention hasdeservedly focused on tying powerful digital actors to rule of law guarantees, the article argues thataccountability offers an important normative yardstick to allow citizens to contest digital decisionsbeyond strict legality. The framework therefore provides a basis for both conceptually disaggregatingand normatively forwarding accountability claims in the digital sphere.