Definition of "accountability" []

• The state of being accountable; liability to be called on to render an account; accountableness; responsible for; answerable for. (noun)
• The obligation imposed by law or lawful order or regulation on an officer or other person for keeping accurate record of property, documents, or funds. The person having this obligation may or may not have actual possession of the property, documents, or funds. Accountability is concerned primarily with records, while responsibility is concerned primarily with custody, care, and safekeeping. (JP 1-02 Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms) (noun)

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• "The purpose of Renaissance 2010 was to increase the number of high quality schools that would be subject to new standards of accountability - a code word for legitimating more charter schools and high stakes testing in the guise of hard-nosed empiricism."
• "Speaking during debate on President Thabo Mbeki's state-of-the-nation address in the National Assembly, he said it was common knowledge that once the deadline had been missed, the term accountability quickly lost its meaning and relevance as a desperate attempt to conceal shortcomings began."
• "Ben Yagoda, author of Memoir: A History, is contemptuous of memoir for its lack of what he calls accountability; he insists on interchanging "memoir" with "autobiography" as a way to support his conclusion: "The past four decades will probably be remembered as the golden age of autobiographical fraud.""