What does accountability actually mean? How does accountability work? Our panel of highly qualified speakers will address these important questions during this opening plenary session. Each of our speakers will bring their unique experience and insights to this session. They will reflect on what accountability means within their particular context, and will discuss their experiences of working to ensure accountability as the basis for transparent democracies. Each speaker has a unique story to tell about how they have held and continue to hold elected representatives and officials to account.

In an era of shrinking democratic space, the role of civil society in fighting governmental corruption is of ever increasing importance. Corruption is a significant issue in many countries worldwide, including within Europe, and this is particularly the case in countries where civil activists’ freedom to operate is curtailed. In such environments, civil activists risk severe consequences for exposing the corruption of their governments.

This workshop brings together three courageous civic activists from the European Neighbourhood and Western Balkan countries who are working to expose corruption at the heart of government, thereby ensuring accountability of these governments to their citizens. Through their work, they have helped to empower citizens to engage in anti-corruption efforts. The activists will share their experiences and exchange ideas on how best to encourage a grass-roots citizen based approach to anti-corruption activities. They reveal some of the innovative methods that can be used to fight corruption in weakdemocratic contexts.

The phenomenon of digital political campaigning has caught global public attention since the twin shocks of Brexit and the US Presidential election in 2016. This challenge was highlighted again by the FacebookCambridge Analytica scandal in 2018. Since then, the tension between the integrity of electoral systems and a vastly unregulated digital sphere have arguably become an inherent danger to democracies worldwide. Therefore, this workshop will look at accountability of social media platforms, and specifically digital political advertising, in Europe and beyond.

Civil society and political parties are crucial part and parcel of all political processes, be they local, national or international. Civil society and political parties can shape political processes, successfully organise political participation, uncover corruption and human rights abuses – and demand accountability from state actors. They are watchdogs of official policy, drawing attention to unsound developments, initiating and focusing public debate, and offering political and social alternatives.

However, all across the world, civil society and political opposition parties are under growing pressure. In many countries, state authorities are taking more and more systematic measures, aimed at restricting the work of civil society and the political opposition. The freedoms of opinion, association, and assembly – the essence of democracy – are increasingly under threat. Efforts to limit such freedoms must be regarded as a challenge to all democratic governments and to global cooperation – and they must be stopped. This session discusses civil society’s ways of reacting to and holding governments accountable in environments of shrinking spaces.

Democracy is ultimately about popular control over decision making. A lack of information on how much money circulates in and around elections, where resources are coming from and how they are spent leads to diminished transparency and deprives the public of the opportunity to make informed choices and keep the elected representatives accountable. Over the past decade, significant steps have been made by many governments to use information technology and the internet to improve the effectiveness of political finance oversight and to enhance transparency in this area. The rapid digitalization of government agencies, political parties and citizens alike has significantly expanded the potential to use digital tools to enhance transparency and accountability. Along with government led efforts, an increasing number of civil society organizations work to promote transparency and public accountability of political parties by building public databases of political and campaign finance information, based on data released by oversight bodies and data that they gather themselves through monitoring of party assets, activities and expenditures. The panel will feature examples of government led, political party-led and CSO-led ICT initiatives in political finance transparency and accountability from across the globe.