Unintelligible government structure defeats accountability between elections

Evidence

Democracy does not merely mean periodic elections. It means a government held accountable to the people between elections. In order that the people may hold their government to account they must have a government that they can understand. No citizen can hope to understand the present collection of departments, offices, boards and commissions, or the present methods of appropriating money. A Governor with a cabinet of reasonable size, responsible for proposing a program in the annual budget and for administering the program as modified by the Legislature, may be brought daily under public scrutiny, be held accountable to the Legislature and public opinion, and be turned out of office if he fails to measure up to public requirements. If this is not democracy then it is difficult to imagine what is. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 455

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines democracy as continuous accountability requiring comprehensible government, not merely periodic elections.
• XREF: Connects to Progressive-era arguments for consolidated executive power and the executive-budget ideal these passages sketch. — connects to: Ballot-box accountability fails for decisions of great complexity and detail — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 4263; Gerrymandered legislative majorities can nullify the results of elections they lose — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project: A New American Origin…, 656
• SEED: Angle: how ‘you must be able to understand government to hold it accountable’ was used to justify exactly the consolidations that later enabled an unaccountable Moses.

Broader Connections

• Gerrymandered legislative majorities can nullify the results of elections they lose #expands (0.80) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 656
• Ballot-box accountability fails for decisions of great complexity and detail #expands (0.78) — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 4263