<incom> Collins, The dogma of ‘transparency’

[Soenke Zehle]

Polemic spiked-style  - why insist that "the Rwandan government ... is 
arguably the least democratic on the continent", for example? - but 
interesting nonetheless, Soenke

Friday 30 November 2007
The dogma of ‘transparency’
Learning more about what goes on behind closed doors won't solve the 
social and political problems that face us. In fact, the obsession with 
disclosure only reinforces distrust in society.
Sean Collins

The term ‘transparency’ is ubiquitous today. The word trips off the 
tongues of politicians on both sides of the Atlantic, bankers, radical 
NGO activists, technology gurus, almost anyone who seeks to be taken 
seriously.

‘Transparency’ can now be found in an extraordinary variety of contexts. 
After setting up a Google alert for ‘transparency’ a few months ago, I 
was surprised to see not only the high number of links every day, but 
also the diverse assortment of topics: hospital performance, hedge 
funds, police conduct, Iran’s nuclear capabilities, consumer protection, 
California’s state budget, military spending, organic food labels, voter 
registration, Chinese toys, oil exploration, Espicopal church finances, 
European Union decision-making. I even learned that, according to sports 
website ESPN, it’s now ‘media nirvana’ to cover the New York Yankees, 
because the baseball team’s new front-office, led by the outspoken Hank 
Steinbrenner, ‘operates with such transparency’.

The rise of ‘transparency’ is recent and rapid. The word has been around 
since at least the fifteenth century according to the Oxford English 
Dictionary, but until recently it wasn’t used that often in the 
humanities or popularly. Most agree that transparency’s current usage 
only began to take off in the 1990s (although there is uncertainty about 
where it originated; some say it came from management jargon, others 
find its roots in interpersonal therapy). Since then it has grown and 
grown in prevalence, to the point where Webster’s New World College 
Dictionary named ‘transparency’ as its Word of the Year for 2003.

Some argue that the idea of transparency has a long lineage, that it is 
just a linguistic alternative to similar phrases used in the past, such 
as ‘openness’ or ‘freedom of information’ (introduced in US legislation 
in the 1960s). But this is reading history backwards. In fact, the basic 
meaning of transparency has changed. Traditionally, transparency’s 
primary definition has been ‘perviousness to light’, which is fairly 
neutral. Today, however, the term is loaded with moral connotations. 
Transparency is unambiguously a Good Thing, and upheld as one of 
society’s virtues. The widespread use of the term often goes unremarked 
upon precisely because it’s become conventional wisdom to seek greater 
transparency in social life.

Indeed, transparency is more than just a descriptive term bandied about. 
It is an ideal, a goal, something that is actively strived for. For 
example, international financial institutions (IFIs), such as the World 
Bank and IMF, demand transparency within developing country regimes as a 
condition for aid. Radical NGOs campaign for transparency in the 
developing countries and within the IFIs. The most high-profile 
organisation campaigning against corruption worldwide is even called 
Transparency International.

Transparency is also an active term among regulatory bodies, where it is 
deployed as a tool for public policy ends. Financial regulatory 
agencies, such as the SEC in the US or the FSA in Britain, require 
transparency via disclosure rules to protect investors. The US 
Department of Homeland Security seeks to be transparent about the threat 
of terrorism by means of its (much-derided) color-coded warning system. 
Governments enact legislation to compel schools to disclose performance 
scores in the name of transparency and with the aim of improving education.

* * *

For the past decade or so, transparency has been addressed by 
specialists within certain areas, with discussions often remaining 
within professional silos. But, reflecting the growth in the term’s use, 
transparency itself is now recognised as a general theme worthy of 
analysis. Indeed, there is now a burgeoning field of ‘transparency 
studies’ within academia, not to mention a ‘transparency industry’ of 
professionals putting it all into practice. Two recently published books 
provide a good insight into the state of the discussion, and also 
unintentionally highlight how transparency can be a problem.

The Right to Know is a collection of essays by academics and 
public-policy thinkers that focus on how much, and what kind of, 
information governments and other major institutions should disclose. It 
is global in scope, but it emphasises changes in the developing world – 
in fact, all of its case studies are from emerging markets (India, 
China, Central and Eastern Europe, and Nigeria). In addition, the book 
examines the issue of transparency thematically, covering transparency 
in business and international financial institutions, disclosure of 
environmental risks, and national security concerns, among others.

The book’s introductory chapter by the editor, Ann Florini of the 
National University of Singapore and the Brookings Institution, 
highlights a growing movement towards greater disclosure: ‘India, South 
Africa, the UK, Japan, Mexico and a host of countries all have adopted 
major freedom information laws; intergovernmental organisations such as 
the World Bank and the IMF have adopted sweeping new disclosure 
policies; and hundreds of multinational corporations have adopted 
voluntary codes that require them to disclose a wide range of 
information about their environmental, labour and other practices.’ 
Despite this trend, Florini claims that ‘publicly useful information is 
generally underprovided’. The book’s contributors generally share 
Florini’s outlook: although there is some discussion of the potential 
limits on disclosure (say, for national security reasons or to protect 
trade secrets), most identify shortfalls in current disclosure regimes 
and put forward arguments for greater openness.

Underlying the various arguments, Florini writes, is a ‘fundamental 
moral claim’ – that transparency is related with democracy. In fact, 
Florini believes transparency can be considered a question of human 
rights: ‘A human rights argument combines pragmatic and moral claims, 
seeing access to information as both a fundamental human right and a 
necessary concomitant of the realisation of all other rights.’

However, the assumption that transparency and democracy go hand-in-hand, 
which many of the book’s contributors champion, needs to be challenged. 
A good example is the movement in the West against alleged corruption in 
Third World regimes. Florini admits that ‘often demands for greater 
transparency go with a push to crack down on corruption’, and I would go 
further and argue that combating corruption is the most prominent way in 
which transparency campaigns express themselves.

These campaigns are actually problematic from the perspective of 
enhancing democratic rights. For a start, an organisation like 
Transparency International bases its conclusions about the extent of 
corruption on ‘perceptions’, using, for example, attitude surveys rather 
than hard statistics (1). But moreover, these campaigns, whether led by 
international financial institutions or Western NGOs, trample on 
national sovereignty in the name of fighting corruption; indeed, if 
transparency is a ‘human rights’ issue, it arguably overrides national 
borders.

Proponents argue that transparency will bring greater accountability. 
But in the developing world, the question is, greater accountability to 
whom? Opening up government spending to unelected NGOs is not the same 
thing as democratic accountability. It simply gives international 
financial institutions more control over their ‘conditionalities’, which 
are actually more about policy prioritisation than the sums of money 
spent. The result is greater subordination of sovereignty to the IFIs 
and Western powers.

Transparency is a device to prove government corruption and thereby 
assists Western powers in discrediting governments they would like to 
see replaced. Conversely, it is used to legitimise governments that they 
want to strengthen that are not at all democratic. For example, Rwanda 
under Paul Kagame is a murderous dictatorship that has assassinated 
prominent opposition figures and overturned a democratic constitution 
that the previous government introduced under Western tutelage in 1991. 
But the Rwandan government is celebrated as one of the most transparent 
in Africa (and as the one most committed to women’s empowerment with 
many women ministers), but it is arguably the least democratic on the 
continent.

At the same time, as a chapter by Thomas Blanton discusses, radical 
organisations try to turn the tables and call for the IMF and World Bank 
to be more transparent. However, the potential to strengthen democratic 
accountability through such campaigns is questionable. Radicals who 
attack these IFIs have a tendency to become co-opted into them; in fact 
the calls for these organisations to be more open, first aired in the 
protests of Seattle and Genoa in the late 1990s, are really calls for 
seats at the table, to join the club.

More to the point, the focus on these institutions tends to overstate 
their autonomy from governments and fetishise them in line with 
fashionable globalisation theories. A true democratic movement would 
influence decisions on government spending and IFI policy without 
needing to look at their books and knowing every word uttered in 
closed-door meetings. Campaigning for IFI transparency might have 
radical appeal, but it is entirely consistent with an apolitical or even 
anti-political approach. In particular, it avoids political debate about 
what these institutions’ role should be with regard to global economic 
progress.

* * *

Full Disclosure adopts a different angle on transparency. Its co-authors 
are two Harvard University professors, Archon Fung and Mary Graham, and 
a Boston University professor, David Weil. The stated aim of their book 
is to explore the question ‘can government legislate transparency 
policies that reduce risks to health, safety, and financial stability, 
or improve the performance of major institutions such as schools, 
hospitals, and banks?’

The foundation of the authors’ research consists of 18 case studies, 
including disclosure of chemical hazards; nutritional information; sex 
offenders’ residences; restaurant hygiene; terrorism threats; election 
campaign contributions; school performance; disease outbreaks; and 
labeling of genetically modified food. The authors found that diverse 
transparency policies share common features and represent a ‘single 
policy innovation’. Many of these policies were unsuccessful in meeting 
their stated aims, and that even ones that were initially doing well 
grew weaker over time. Effective transparency, they argue, connects 
information with action: ‘Targeted policies were effective only when 
they provided facts that people wanted in times, places, and ways that 
enabled them to act. That is, effective policies were those that 
succeeded in embedding new information in users’ and disclosers’ 
existing decision-making routines.’

The best aspect of the book is the detail contained in the case studies. 
But, as the authors’ discussion of effectiveness indicates, a drawback 
is that the authors are mainly interested in the practical question of 
‘does it work?’, rather than questioning whether the end is worthwhile 
in itself (which could also impact effectiveness). For example, consider 
the case study on disclosure of sex offenders’ residences in the US 
(known as ‘Megan’s Law’, after a seven year-old girl who was raped and 
murdered by a released sex offender). They note that ‘since the passage 
of these laws in the 1990s, some individuals have used that information 
to harass offenders, to force them to move out of their homes, or in 
several extreme cases to murder them’. Yet the authors do not debate 
whether such a public policy goal is socially desirable, nor even 
whether public safety improves; they simply analyze whether offenders 
indeed comply. They do not really consider that some transparency 
policies might have no chance of succeeding because they are irrational 
in themselves, rather than being due to poor implementation.

Another consequence of the emphasis on effectiveness is that the authors 
do not spend much time attempting to explain the rise of transparency 
policies. They do briefly offer three long-term trends: that 
conventional forms of government intervention, such as standards-based 
regulatory systems, are not well-suited for the new kinds of risk-based 
policy; the increasing power of the computers and the Internet; and 
skepticism about the capacity of government to solve problems. The first 
and third of these trends are worth exploring further (the second is 
mundane), but the authors don’t do that in the book.

Looking over the list of case studies covered, it seems that common 
themes are risks, fear and safety. What’s interesting is how the 
transparency approach tends to increase rather than allay those 
concerns. For example, consider food labeling. Insisting that producers 
provide more information about the nutritional value or ingredients of 
food seems like a pragmatic, neutral solution for the authorities to 
take (rather than say ban or put stern warnings on ‘bad’ foods). Yet 
simply the act of introducing this new information – in the general 
climate today – alerts shoppers that something must be suspect about 
this, even if it is perfectly healthy and safe.

There are other factors at play too. In response to threats of terror 
and epidemics, there is a strong element of blame avoidance on the part 
of public authorities: if, in the name of transparency, they keep 
issuing alerts and guidelines, and conduct contingency planning in the 
full glare of publicity, then nobody can say that they weren’t warned. 
The preparations for the – supposedly – imminent global flu pandemic 
have that character.

Transparency policies are also part of the wider ‘audit culture’ which 
emerged from the financial scandals of the early 1990s and then extended 
to other areas of society, particularly public services. Disclosure of 
hospital (and even individual surgeon) performance data is part of the 
wider ideology of consumer choice and the drive to impose new forms of 
regulation and accountability on professionals. Michael Power, in his 
book The Audit Society, makes the point that these oversight processes 
tend to encourage people to put their trust in third parties, with the 
effect of creating a spiral of mistrust between citizen and professional 
(2). In other words, although transparency is often introduced in the 
name of restoring trust, it often has the opposite effect.

* * *

Transparency and its absence become a means of understanding almost any 
issue today. Name a social or political ailment, and more often than not 
a lack of transparency will be identified as the root cause. And the 
answer to the problem is greater transparency. Take the Iraq war. It’s 
often said that the Bush administration wasn’t transparent about its 
evidence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and misled the country 
into war, and it now needs to be more open about its intelligence.

This sounds like a sharp critique, but a lack of transparency isn’t the 
issue in Iraq. More importantly, it is an evasion of responsibility. 
Before the invasion of Iraq, it was clear to anyone who looked that the 
Bush allegations of WMDs in the country were bogus; the idea that 
politicians who supported the invasion were fooled is a cop-out.

More generally, focusing on a lack of transparency feeds into conspiracy 
theories. We don’t see everything, so there could always be something 
going on behind the scenes. (’What did Cheney really say when he met 
with those oil executives?’ ‘Were the Bush family in cahoots with the 
Saudis?’, etc.) In fact, the emphasis on what we don’t yet know – the 
non-transparent - indirectly validates what is known. ‘The real problem 
is what we don’t know’ implies that what we do know is acceptable. In 
reality, on the basis of what’s already disclosed, we know enough to 
make judgments; we don’t have to wait until all is revealed.

The key to understanding why the transparency argument carries so much 
moral weight today is its opposite – secrecy. We are uncomfortable with 
secrecy and informal relations, especially if exercised by people at 
work or within institutions (as distinct from our own personal privacy). 
We assume that what goes on behind closed doors is negative. Ultimately, 
the transparency ideology derives its appeal from the wider sense that 
people, when away from the glare of publicity, are capable of being 
corrupted. It is founded on the belief our fellow citizens can’t be 
trusted. This approach leads to reducing discussions of political and 
economic institutions to matters of individuals – corrupt individuals. 
Disagree with the global warming orthodoxy? Then you must be from a 
shady lobbying group; where do you get your funding from anyway? (3)

When public figures stand up and say ‘we will ensure that such-and-such 
operates with transparency and accountability’, we are supposed to feel 
reassured. It seems like that will be the end of the story. But 
transparency is an ever-elusive goal: it’s not like you have it and then 
it’s over. Full transparency in social life is impossible, it’s a demand 
that can never be fully met. And so the pursuit of transparency always 
holds out the possibility that someone, somewhere, ‘out there’, is doing 
something to our detriment.

The ideology of transparency has, as one author puts its, a 
‘quasi-religious’ character (4). It presents the view that openness is 
inherently virtuous – in all contexts, in society generally. It’s time 
to stop being blinded by all this talk about letting in more sunshine, 
and knock the purveyors of this holier-than-thou creed off their high horse.

Sean Collins is a writer based in New York.

The Right to Know: Transparency for an Open World, edited by Ann 
Florini, is published by Columbia University Press, 2007.

Full Disclosure: The Perils and Promise of Transparency, by Archon Fung, 
Mary Graham and David Weil is published by Cambridge University Press, 2007.

(1) Corruptababble, by Ceri Dingle

(2) The Audit Society: Rituals of Verification, by Michael Power, Oxford 
University Press, 1997

(3) Paul Wolfowitz and the politics of corruption, by Matthias Heitmann

(4) Christopher Hood, ‘Transparency in Historical Perspective’, in 
Transparency: The Key to Better Governance?, Oxford University Press, 2006

reprinted from: 
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/reviewofbooks_article/4135/