Citizen Sector Accountability: A Review of the Literature, An Overview

Much of the literature regarding citizen sector accountability begins by setting the scene
with the growth in numbers, size, funds and diversity of citizen organizations. Lester
Salamon, founder of the Johns Hopkins University Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project,
has termed the dynamic growth of civil society since the 1980s a global associational
revolution. The rise of the citizen organizations brought with it heightened levels of
scrutiny of their activities, which can be dated back to the mid-1990s and came in two
waves.