Communication and accountability in the Public Sector: a possible overlap explored in the American and Italian context

The aim of the present paper is to investigate whether and to what extent governments that are communicatively oriented to their citizens may be assumed as politically accountable to them. To do so, we will try to construct a theoretical overlap among the communication theory, the theory of agency and the concept of accountability. Thus, the analysis will strive to find empirical confirmation on the basis of a multidisciplinary approach encompassing such disciplines as accounting, public sector management and linguistics. The study will focus on some American and Italian governmental disclosure practices. As we will see, emerging from the present analysis is that what is theoretically possible seems to be hardly achievable from a pragmatic perspective.