In this book, Nadia Hilliard contributes to a resurgence of public administration scholarship that investigates the mechanisms of democracy through the functions of the bureaucracy, rather than through politicians, judges, or civic groups. The distinctive contribution of The Accountability State is its focus on the relatively neglected U.S. federal inspectors general (IGs). At first glance, the inspectors appear to inhabit apolitical terrain. Upon closer inspection, however, theirs is the ground upon which the tension between administrative and democratic values play out. They participate in a form of political accountability that is more complicated than the mechanisms of voting and elections. While critics of bureaucracy from the left and right point to problems with the state policing itself, Hilliard makes a convincing argument that inspectors general are a part of a web of accountability that characterizes a large, complex, liberal democracy.

The U.S. IG system dates to the Revolutionary War, when the inspectors ensured proper military (hence “General”) training and discipline. The first Office of Inspector General was established by Congress to root out waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs in the Department of Health and Human Services. The Inspector General Act of 1978 created 12 more IGs in the federal government, and today there are 73 federal IG offices. Congress structured the first IGs to monitor compliance and produce measurable results that Congress could use to claim credit for solving problems. Inspectors issue mandated semiannual reports and respond to specific requests from Congress, though some have been more entrepreneurial and focused on improving performance and democratic integrity. Their reports often address accounting and rule compliance, but they also serve the broader ends of performance reporting, transparency, and watchdog journalism.

Inspectors general straddle the executive and legislative branches. They derive legitimacy from Congress through statute and, for some positions, Senate confirmation. The executive provides legitimacy through presidential appointments. Like many bureaucrats, they also derive legitimacy from their expertise and reputation for neutral competence, staying above the partisan fray. They respond to congressional incentives to root out waste, fraud, and abuse, but they must also be mindful of executive preferences because the president can remove IGs. Presidents have refrained from firing an entire class of IGs (at least since Ronald Reagan’s abrupt replacement of the class in 1981), but individual IGs are at risk of removal.

It might seem that the inspectors replace representative democracy with procedure, weighing in on issues formerly taken up by politicians, courts, or citizens. The Accountability State tackles this criticism head-on by examining the role IGs play in navigating accountability in the modern state. Hilliard convincingly shows that IGs serve the ends of accountability by providing resources for political actors. They present judgments to politicians who then can take action informed by evidence and analysis. In the author’s view, the IGs are not so much part of Max Weber’s “iron cage” as they are a tool with which politicians can make sense of complex issues and maintain democratic integrity in a bureaucratic state with multiple branches. Studying IGs is one way to investigate how “the exigencies of the administrative state are transforming the nature of the political” (p. 11). IGs have latitude in choosing the issues they investigate, and how those issues are narrated.

Hilliard employs the three frames of political, constitutional, and managerial democracy to analyze what IGs do. She finds that IGs “bear the imprint of multiple normative visions of accountability” and may fulfill the vision of one of the three frames more than the others (p. 11). The book’s extensive interview and archival material supports a convincing case that IGs navigate tensions among different visions of accountability.

Another approach to the subject might proceed in a more conventional American political development style in which IG positions emerge and multiply across agencies as a by-product of constitutional design and political bargaining between Congress and the executive. Some IG positions may focus on managerial concerns such as compliance with existing rules because they are designed to be less independent, while IGs that have more structural autonomy and capacity may be more likely to speak out on behalf of democratic integrity. Yet another approach to the subject might examine all IGs rather than a handful of cases in an attempt to explain what drives variation in IG missions and performance. As one interview subject put it, “Once you’ve met one IG, you’ve met one IG” (p. 40).

The book’s case studies show that IGs in the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have issued consequential reviews despite having different structures. The post-Hurricane Katrina IG reports led to the development of new coordinated response plans and financial controls. The DHS, however, was able to implement recommendations that it had issued previously only after the political pressure that followed a high-profile disaster. One of the book’s lessons is that without political support, IG advice will fall on deaf ears. This fact may be lamented by experts who claim to know what is best, but it serves the goal of democratic accountability.

The State Department’s IG, in contrast, has been comparatively weak. Its reports criticizing the war on drugs in the 1980s or the mismatch between goals and resources in the war in Afghanistan under President Barack Obama had no lasting consequences (p. 205). The politics were not right for intervention in these debates, and the State Department IG historically lacks the capacity of some other IGs to engage in anything beyond compliance investigations. At times (particularly in 2007), the State IG was disgraced by scandal. Hilliard characterizes the State IG as engaging in political democracy, but only at a surface level, since she finds that these inspectors did not address underlying constitutional or performance issues head-on.

Even the relatively successful Homeland Security IG devoted most of its work to what Hilliard calls managerial democracy. The inspector’s office was concerned about compliance most of the time, even though disaster management and Hurricane Katina in particular are not primarily about failure to follow rules: The destruction that accompanied Katrina and other disasters illuminates critical social problems, such as race and inequality. The author’s vision of the inspectors general as negotiating different visions of democracy and maintaining democratic integrity by upholding concern for rights is often aspirational rather than descriptive. IGs may develop a greater constitutional and rights-based focus over time, but much of the potential remains untapped. General counsels and chief financial officers may also play a role in the development of the accountability state.

The Accountability State succeeds in pointing out the role of IGs in a new kind of democratic accountability in which the bureaucracy works alongside politicians in shaping the political, and not merely as an implementer of clearly defined goals. Hilliard builds on a tradition of democratic theory in public administration, deftly laying out the terrain for classifying the effects of IGs on democracy that future scholars will undoubtedly follow.