Roles and meanings of informality in transnational accountability: the EU migration crisis in the realm of transnational municipal networks
Date
2019
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
This master thesis investigates the meanings and functions of transnational accountability by
analyzing the informal means of organizing accountability in emerging transnational
governance networks. In this regard, the study will shed light onto a transnational municipal
network (TMN) named EUROCITIES to understand the new realm of transnational
governance in greater detail and examine its potential for transcending accountability gaps
among conventional state-based actors. Accountability will be construed as an institutional
arrangement within a broader governance setting and investigated in terms of ‘to what’, ‘to
whom’, and ‘by what means’. When transnationality enters the picture, new non-state actors
earn presence on the one hand, while the three focal points of accountability relationship
becomes obscured on the other, leading to the issue of accountability gap. In this conceptual
framework, the project examines the accountability relationship of EUROCITIES as a single
case study as an intersection of the concept, transnational realm, and real-life issue of the
2015/2016 migration crisis, utilizing a qualitative inductive analysis. It concludes that
EUROCITIES operates based on a new, more emancipatory sense of accountability to
outperform the formal accountability, which makes it, both the secretariat and its member
cities, an adaptive partner for the EU to address the accountability gap and the crisis.