Interactive scale framing for managing accountability in complex policy processes

Complex policy issues, which can be framed in various ways, increasingly play out in multi-level and multi-scale contexts. This allows for scale framing: framing an issue at a particular scale and level. In this paper we study scale framing as an interactional phenomenon in various policy settings, with a focus on the role of scale framing in managing accountability. Using an interpretive approach, based on discourse and conversation analysis, we analyze three different policy interactions. We show how actors do the politics of scale and manage accountability interactively. We found that actors use scale frames to manage accountability. Sometimes the discursive device is formulated in terms of a scale frame and the combination does the accountability work, sometimes the scale frame itself is used to construct accountability, and sometimes a discursive device is constructed to account for a particular scale frame. We tentatively revealed three scale framing patterns. Finally we conclude that a discursive approach to accountability is an important addition to the more procedural approaches to accountability in complex policy processes, especially in today’s information society