Workshop page for Wikipedia:Administrator recall
At most levels of user access the decision to grant is made through community consensus. Local to the English Wikipedia, administrators and bureaucrats are selected by the community by requests for adminship, and the Arbitration Committee members by advisory elections. At Foundation level, stewards and the Board of Trustees are selected via steward's and Trustees' elections, respectivly. In all of these cases, trust is placed in the community to collectivly arrive at the correct decision.
With regards to adminstrators, they are expected to be "known and trusted member[s] of the community" before they can expect to be promoted. In some cases the behavior of the editor after being promoted may cause them to lose that trust.
For severe or acute abuse of administrator privledges, a requests for arbitration is an appropiate step. The Arbitration committee has ruled with regards to adminstrator conduct, and have revoked privledge as required. For problems that are chronic or that do not involve use of privledges, the Committe has traditionally been reticent to open a case.
For these cases, reconfirmation allows the community to discuss the candidate's continued position of trust.