The hypotheses which focus on the features of the government in power have not been confirmed in this study. No evidence has been found for the hypothesized effect of the ideological distance between the key decisionmaking actors on degrees of formal political accountability, and only limited support has been found for the impact of government capacity. These findings do not come as a big surprise as the variation in government characteristics within a political system is always small, and the hypotheses may therefore be more relevant for comparative studies of political systems. More surprising is the finding on the number of veto players. The number of veto players significantly affects the degree of formal political accountability, but the effect is not in the hypothesized direction. That is, when more veto players are involved in the decision-making process on the statutes of an independent agency, less rather than more provisions for political accountability are included in these statutes. This finding may be explained by looking at the consequences of veto players from another perspective. In the presence of a large number of veto players, it is more difficult for politicians to make decisions and to come to policy compromises. These conditions may lead to more discretion on the part of agencies in two ways. First, and most straightforward, if it is more difficult to make policy decisions, it may also be more difficult to come to decisions on the design of agencies. Following from this, one can expect the lack of compromise on legislative provisions to lead to less detailed legislation, and also to less provisions on accountability.