Abstract This article gives a short review of recent research on public sector audit, and then introduces six articles in a special issue on public sector audit in contemporary society. Many countries have developed their audit institutions and expanded the audit activities in particular since the 1980s. New public management and the theory of the ‘audit society’ explain much of this development well, also in some international organizations, but some countries have also experienced a contraction in the audit activities in the public sector. Moreover, literature on public sector audit outside the Anglo‐American and North European contexts, and especially from Africa, Asia and Latin‐America, is limited. There are big variations in how audit institutions are organized, in what they produce, in their relations to stakeholders and media, and in their impacts on organizations and society. Overall, auditors are little active in the fight against corruption, and the Napoleonic court system for organizing supreme audit institutions seems to be little effective. The audit institutions in the Anglo‐American and Nordic accountability regimes seem to be relatively effective, but the recent research show that auditors' independence and relevance are persistent challenging issues in public sector audit.
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