Accountable autonomy is a concept by political scientist Archon Fung

Archon Fung

Archon Fung is the Ford Foundation Professor of Democracy and Citizenship at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and co-founder of the Transparency Policy Project...

 that denotes a particular institutional design of administrative and democratic organization which tries to get the most out of civic participation

Participation (decision making)

Participation in social science refers to different mechanisms for the public to express opinions - and ideally exert influence - regarding political, economic, management or other social decisions. Participatory decision making can take place along any realm of human social activity, including...

 and deliberation

Deliberation

Deliberation is a process of thoughtfully weighing options, usually prior to voting. In legal settings a jury famously uses deliberation because it is given specific options, like guilty or not guilty, along with information and arguments to evaluate. Deliberation emphasizes the use of logic and...

. Accountable autonomy addresses the defects of decentralization

Decentralization

__FORCETOC__Decentralization or decentralisation is the process of dispersing decision-making governance closer to the people and/or citizens. It includes the dispersal of administration or governance in sectors or areas like engineering, management science, political science, political economy,...

 and localism

Localism (politics)

Localism describes a range of political philosophies which prioritize the local. Generally, localism supports local production and consumption of goods, local control of government, and promotion of local history, local culture and local identity...

, such as group-think, inequality

Economic inequality

Economic inequality comprises all disparities in the distribution of economic assets and income. The term typically refers to inequality among individuals and groups within a society, but can also refer to inequality among countries. The issue of economic inequality is related to the ideas of...

 and parochialism

Parochialism

Parochialism means being provincial, being narrow in scope, or considering only small sections of an issue. It may, particularly when used pejoratively, be contrasted to universalism....

, through hybrid arrangements that allocate power

Political power

Political power is a type of power held by a group in a society which allows administration of some or all of public resources, including labour, and wealth. There are many ways to obtain possession of such power. At the nation-state level political legitimacy for political power is held by the...

, function and responsibility

Moral responsibility

Moral responsibility usually refers to the idea that a person has moral obligations in certain situations. Disobeying moral obligations, then, becomes grounds for justified punishment. Deciding what justifies punishment, if anything, is a principle concern of ethics.People who have moral...

 between central authorities and local bodies. The terms accountable and autonomy

Autonomy

Autonomy is a concept found in moral, political and bioethical philosophy. Within these contexts, it is the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision...

 might seem at odds with each other. Autonomy means both independence from central power, as the capacity to accomplish own ends. The second sense is what Fung stresses upon: ‘a conception of centralized action that counter-intuitively bolsters local capability without improperly and destructively encroaching upon it.’

Two examples of this agency structure are Chicago's Alternative Policing Strategy

Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy

Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy was started in 1993 as a pilot program in five diverse neighborhoods. A year later, the Chicago Police Department implemented CAPS all across Chicago...

 and Local School Councils

Local School Councils

Every Chicago public school has a Local School Council which consists of parents, community members, teachers, and the principal of the school. All members of the council are elected and conduct monthly meetings which the public can attend....

.

Design of Accountable Autonomy

The design of accountable autonomy exists in prescriptions for the effectivity of civic participation:

1. Increasing discretion of street-level officials with respect to formal rules and centralized oversight, while making their actions transparent and open to critique for civilians;
2. Generating innovations through engaging the local knowledge of civilians and diffusing insights through benchmarking
   Benchmarking
   Benchmarking is the process of comparing one's business processes and performance metrics to industry bests and/or best practices from other industries. Dimensions typically measured are quality, time and cost...
   
   of best practices;
3. Having cross-functional coordination, not a rigid division of labor;
4. Enhancing neighbourhood trust through tests of collaboration.

Fung argues that accountable autonomy increases fairness, because it offers ways for the least advantaged to act constructively against unfairness and it offers opportunities for civilians to deliberate about prioritization of problems and strategies to solve them.