The institutions of accountability discussed so far have weaknesses both in principle and in practice. Even those that promote performance accountability are of little help in ensuring the accountability of government policy making. Thus, we need to consider a final group of mechanisms that call on citizens and organized groups to participate in central-government policy making. The aim is not impartial external control but an active effort to incorporate the views of the public and of organized groups into the policy-making process.

Some political leaders in Central Europe have recognized the value of such participation, but their understanding of the possibilities has often been limited to consensual processes involving labor, business, and the government. These politicians have indeed identified an important democratic value, but they have an overly narrow conception of the options. To take one example, consider the following quotation from Péter Medgyessy from 1988 at the beginning of the transition period when he was Deputy Prime Minister of Hungary; he was Prime Minister between May 2002 and mid-August 2004: