Blog(?)

For a while now, I was considering writing something on the topic of the Pandora Papers – another showing of the crazed capital-driven attempts of economic and political elites to escape accountability – yet, the row of topics that have come and gone since I decided to actually write down these words has been overwhelming. Of course is the ever-occurring crisis of fiscal elusion and evasion one of the foundational problems of the late capitalistic times we are living through (this directionality is an optimistic desire that we will, effectively, move beyond this paradigm). However, for the little time and research efforts I can invest in outlining the problem and describing its many offspring, I have chosen to fame it discursively, as a base for this new entry.

Likewise, I found a better case in point for the transparency framework in the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP) 26th edition. #COP26 reflects all problems, limits, but also potentials of a transparency-driven democratic structure. It also highlights the regional and global contradictions that our liberal society feeds and grows. In doing so, it is also the best example to illustrate the sociological clash that not only the elites, but all of us reproduce, willingly or unwillingly.

So, taking the #COP26 case, let me reintroduce an analytical framework of institutional transparency. On the one hand, information; on the other accountability. I illustrated in the previous entry to this blog(?) that transparency is the cumulative result of information availability and the effectiveness of accountability mechanisms. Theoretically, the more information you have, the more critical your opinion will become regarding broader or more precise issues. Also, the more channels through which demand a) more information, or b) specific actions to change an established state of things, the more critical and active will you opinion become.

The (ideal) result: A civil society that grows critical of the institutions and is able to contest them through informed arguments and open channels. This would create a virtuous cycle of institutional-social feedback, expanding spaces for deliberation, confrontation, and change.

Yes, this is a democratic idea. To deliberate, to confront; and to change – this is what I position myself (as well as my theoretical constructs) to represent and push forward.

Why is then #COP26 a good example for this framework? In a classic academic answer: because it depends on how you look at it. In a more discursive answer, because it shows us all the ways in which this ideal type of democratic socialisation falls short and, effectively, fails. It leaves us with the too real, and too sad result of the status quo. There are, though, deliberations; there are, indeed, confrontations. There are, arguably, some changes. Notice, however, that the intensity of occurrence and relevance declines along this progression.

The starting point – weak as it is already – of deliberation, gives way to staged and overly-planned confrontation. And, most importantly, even when there are changes (to some discourses, to some laws, to some regulations), you have to ask yourself: Are these enough?

That is a second set of reasons why #COP26 helps to illustrate my transparency-driven democratic framework (but also a number of issues co-related). Pressingly, this conference reminds us that there is a specific moment in the future where things are to definitely and dramatically change. We do not know how, where or, crucially, when. We know that the future is coming for us and, of course, there is no escaping this moment. And, even then, the scope for action we seem to have is ridiculously reduced.

This is not due to little knowledge about the causes and consequences of our consume-driven behaviour – we know exactly how many square kilometres of forest land will be cut down in order to feed the cows, pigs, and sheep that drives Europe’s and USA’s dietary needs. So, the information component is by no means the problem. On the contrary, we have to much information, we are metaphorically drowning in data.

The real issue lies at the other end; what do we do – or can do – with such data? Yes, we discuss; yes, our elected officials discuss; and, yes, our elected officials’ elected officials also discuss. But, where the paths from us to them? How can we climb up these levels with our concerns and make ourselves heard? Is it even possible? To the last question we need to optimistically say: yes, it is!

To the others, though, we must get a little more critical. And a bit normative, if you will.

The democratic (Western) ideal of governance is cross-cut by a surreal world of hyper-technification – a bureaucratic landscape that reproduces itself sometimes for the sake of it. In this context, surely there is a way to reach the top and make our claims be heard; either through sensationalism and media (the case of Greta Thunberg) or following the administrative logic of paperwork and scheduling (the case of many NGOs and organised civil groups without the blessing/curse of media attention).

Now, these scenarios highlight my concerns and substantiate my approach. First, information outweighs the (effective) mechanisms on the issue. Secondly, institutions such as #COP26 are not meant for such deliberation and confrontation, and, even when it can occur, their effective functioning pays the bill. This is because, thirdly, institutions exist on a self-preservation logic; put plainly: Our time is not their time. Institutions exist in a void, powered by a timeless ideal of governing society. We – society – exist only inasmuch as pressed, limited, and extorted by time itself. Paradoxically enough, we design institutions that can govern us; we do that so well, that we design them so that any further change can only occur in extraordinary circumstances.

What do we do, then, if we have all these data and information regarding our bleak future, but we cannot effectively make our officials (and our officials’ officials) change what we ask them to?

As I mentioned, the context of global governance (if there was ever such thing) highlights the bads and worses of the way elite international politics is organised. #COP26 represents an industrial (in its roots) but also a developing problem (in its worst repercussions). However, the elite political class is driven by opaque agendas that, even within my optimistic transparency framework, escape every analytical dimension. In other words, we cannot influence decisions on matters that we cannot even recognise.

That is why, not even Greta, in her privileged position, seems to acknowledge how or where to tell us to appeal to. That is why the staged confrontation that took place on the streets of Glasgow, with all their colours, banners, and songs also do not know where to point to. This pitfall only shows us, critically, how limited our status quo is; how much it invests in disallowing accountability mechanisms.

And here lies the problem: Even though we have information about the core issue, we have little information about the functioning of the forums deciding upon the issue. Similarly, and tied together, we have little information on the channels that could influence those forums, if any. Thus, my optimistic framework becomes rather useless. As I mentioned, my framework is a democratically-anchored ideal of social contestation and participation; as such, it is motivated by a strong normative mindset. Against this set of ideas, reality falls far, far off the ideal type.

Is this a recognition of futility in the current state of affairs? No, not really. It is a call to action. It is but a desperate one; as I pointed out, we are enclosed by time. Time defines and limits our potential and, right now, time is against our democratic potential, our very livelihoods. Demanding transparency in our officials’ (and our officials’ officials’) dealings is a crucial step towards that.

We need to know what do we have in front of us, systemically, and, likewise, we need to have channels to truly influence it. Only now, and then, could we deliberate, confront, and change our nationals and global systems in order to turn the institutional logic around: Institutions should be time-bound, relegated and dependent on out deliberation and confrontation.

Transparency makes information available, while accountability makes information actionable (Naurin, 2007). From a governance perspective, this simple, yet purposeful statement can signify the gap between diametrically opposed political realities. It can also entail the materialisation, or not, of government projects; it can stop the communication channels to and from the civil society, as well as within institutions. It can thus represent the dividing instance between virtuous governance and vicious predation.[1]

The red thread running through the two sides of the statement above is none other than information. Openness is then based atop the foundational role of information (and in some more innovative ways, of data) and, in an opposite direction, one could argue that there is neither accountability nor transparency without information.

As a proponent of such basic idea, I have come to meet some relevant hurdles that have consequently driven me to write these lines as a kind of transparency manifesto. These hurdles represent mostly written ideas but also research agendas and an overall positioning within the field, which argues in favour of, what I will start to call, a limited transparency. The limitation attribute refers both to the breadth and scope with which to understand the concept’s applicability. Let me elaborate.

The idea that information enables civil society (individual and collective) and institutional actors to hold officers, institutions, and the entire system accountable is a cornerstone not only of the transparency literature, but it is a narrative (perhaps the greatest) of the democratic regime ideal. The caveat that the limited transparency approach pushes forward is that such levels of transparency can not – but mainly, should not – be achieved. The reason(s)? Abundant. But, you would be correct to ask yourself, why? Again, because a set of bundled excuses have been ingrained into the core of the very conceptual understanding of transparency.

Let me digress for a bit. As transparency is known to represent a key factor in undermining corrupt practices, democracy is also a driving factor against corruption in general. On the other hand, transparency and democracy are also intertwined theoretically and empirically (for the latter, statistically significant to a certain extent and under certain conditions; in general, almost intuitively).[2] Hence, there is a common ground from which to build ideas and arguments – transparency is good for democratic systems and helps to combat corruption. The question the limited transparency approach asks in this regard is then: to what extent does transparency effectively curb corruption while still benefiting democracy?

The question may appear, as one would sense, very basic. However, as anyone who has ever studied any of these three elements (democracy, transparency, and corruption) would warn, such simplicity hides a myriad of analytical and epistemic problems that not only require great conceptual and/or empirical consideration, but also an academic (and for that, personal) stance.

Thus, balancing out the benefits for democracy while holding corruption curbing at desirable levels is an act of positioning. It is an act that drifts away from academic and scientific objectivity and fits into the realm of subjective sensibilities. How? In the same way as researchers position themselves within a field or paradigmatic line of thought. To embrace institutionalism or critical theory is an act of academic honesty and rigorousness, yes, but it also answers to the researcher’s own experiential framework and cosmovision. The latter, naturally, is deeply interrelated with ethic and aesthetic perspectives of the world. It is not “ideologism”, rather academic honesty.

That being said, one has to ask oneself: what are researchers in the limited transparency approach signalling when they warn about keeping the balance (democracy ← transparency → corruption)? The answers that I have gathered until now, at least, point toward two main areas; namely a) the cost-benefit desert and, b) the reputational risks wasteland. As you may notice, the literary liberty in the naming of such is a deliberate and very conscious decision. Let me expand.

The dunes of the cost-benefit argument are as tricky and deceitful as the sandy landscape of a desert. In this metaphoric reality transparency is conceived of as a mirage; too good to be true. Put bluntly, the rationale behind this idea tell us that greater transparency is too costly to be enacted, and its direct benefits too little to justify the expenditure. Two further elements are deeply concerning from this perspective: the idea that democratic values can be (and in reality are) measured by economic value, and that (in most cases) these costs are seen as mere spending rather than as investment. Thus, politically, this discourse is easily framed as opposing the efficiency-seeking agendas of neoliberal fiscal “responsibility”. Academically, this discourse is upheld by researchers who “understand” and “recognise” the limitations of institutional implementation and, mostly, argue in favour of so-called innovative solutions.[3] The problem is then perpetuated by an approach that denies a true call-to-action while settling for the established framework.

The wasteland’s towering fumes of reputational risks are as disgusting and potentially poisonous as the most catastrophic barren landscape you could think of. In this metaphoric scenery transparency represents a health control agency trying to set minimum waste management standards. The state of things becomes a public matter and responsible officers fail to take action because of, ironically, the respective responsibility. Again, in simple terms, when things get publicised the “risk” of getting audited because of any and all potential irregularities increases. This is what has been epithetically termed as hyper-transparency.[4] Academically, the limited transparency approach argues that, reiterating its “understanding” of institutional constrains, expanding the scope and breadth of transparency instances will cause officers to – in broad terms – deflect or stop the work on information-sensitive projects. So, out of fear of accountability, officers prefer to keep their outputs locked away from public view.

As I argue, both settings clash head-first with democratic ideals, for example those of legitimacy, inclusion, and openness. The behaviours that the literature acknowledges, but fails to sanction, represent scenarios where the availability of information remains stuck on – sometimes arbitrary, sometimes legally instituted – frameworks that fail to address core issues of legitimate governance structures (civil society consultation, open-by-default processes, co-creation spaces, and many more). By failing to incentivise this inclusive model institutions, specifically, but governments, in general, fail societies and the very political regime they claim to represent.

As for the academic rationale backing the limited transparency approach, scholars argue that there is no value in researching (or endorsing for that matter) hyper-transparency for the reason of its alleged impracticality. This impracticality is informed by – and informs – the very anchoring elements just described. It lacks, from my perspective at least, a critical factor that stresses and pushes forth the transforming role that radical transparency initiatives (potentially) represent.

In different fields transparency represents a guiding role – usually a principle within the vision and/or vision of institutions and organisations (nationally and internationally). Be they finance, international relations or, with burning relevance, the environment, applied transparency schemes are (should be) the tracks over which these fields move forward. But, beyond mere schemes, transparency systems, and governance systems more concretely, should be developed and promoted within the immediate context or institutional field of influence. Take the case of local governments, on the one side; they represent the closest governance link to the people. Transparency, thus, should be an embedded – indisputably commonsensical – mandate for these institutions in order to foster and further drive civic engagement, as well as political-administrative accountability mechanisms. In another pertinent example, the role of international organisations – whether supranational or civil-society-driven – must also be traversed by transparency systems that not only make their work more easily auditable, but rather make them closer to the beneficiaries of their services (from the World Bank to Transparency International).

However, amongst scholars a palpable feeling of pessimism seems to be omnipresent.[5] the acknowledgement of the need of transparency appears to only be trumped by the dire warnings of the scholars about how institutions cannot handle it. The solutions proposed? As I said, few, usually linked to hopeful translations of private sector “innovation” to public administration dealings. This pre-made one-size-fits-all solution only acts as an anchor and multiplier of problematic development structures that ignore context specificity.

Few and far between are the examples of critical proponents of (hyper-)transparency, just as like the examples of literature coming elsewhere outside the “Western” universities and researcher centres. This confabulation is no coincidence; the transparency field is build on western-liberal standards, both political and economic. This implies a bundled agenda of efficiency and innovation-seeking agencies that are constituted in established models of governance. The hyper-transparency approach represents, thus, a threat to this status quo.

My own research recognises and attempts to deal with the gaps and inequalities in knowledge production/consumption, as well as with the consolidated conceptual models of transparency and accountability. The reasons are common for both outlooks. I propose a governance system based on the liberating role of information and the actors surrounding its production and circulation. Open data is basic cornerstone of my approach, whether digital or analog – engaged and enabled actors is the other. While free flowing information is, from my epistemic stance, a must, it will remain hierarchical, asymmetric and deceitful unless the appropriate channels exist for the auditing of officers, institutions and systems (from micro to macro).

To finish, you may think that all of these initiatives and instances already exist, and that asking for a radical liberation of data leads to nowhere, and that the limited transparency approach is not so bad after all. But one thing you will notice, as I do, when you merely begin studying this topic is that all accounted examples of mismanagement have occurred not because of too much information, but rather because of too little, too hidden, too obtuse, too well-kept, too exclusive… The list goes on with every other adjective you can think of. Limited transparency makes it seem as if knowing too much about administrative dealings could be dangerous. Better keep our eyes shut.

All barriers to information should be torn down and cast away. Information is power, yes. But only to the extent to which all systemic actors can act upon it and demand more of it, or actions against its concealment or distortion.[6]

I welcome any and all comments and feedback on transparency, from conceptualisations to applications; weaknesses and strengths, upsides and downsides.

This is just a positioning. An academic exercise of honesty and openness.

Free (the) knowledge!

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• Naurin, Daniel. ‘Transparency, Publicity, Accountability – The Missing Links’, 12. Uppsala: CONNEX-RG2, 2007.

[1] I take the simile from the work of Bates, both from Robert H. Bates, When Things Fell Apart: State Failure in Late-Century Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); as well as Robert H. Bates, The Political Economy of Development. A Game Theoretic Approach, 1st ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021).

[2] See Schnell’s contributions on the topic, in Sabina Schnell, ‘From Information to Predictability: Transparency on the Path to Democratic Governance. The Case of Romania’, International Review of Administrative Sciences 84, no. 4 (December 2018): 692–710, https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852316648756; also Sabina Schnell, ‘Vision, Voice, and Technology: Is There a Global “Open Government” Trend?’, Administration & Society (November 2020), https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399720918316; and Sabina Schnell, ‘Transparency Assessment in National Systems’, in Quality of Governance, ed. Hester Paanakker, Adam Masters, and Leo Huberts (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2020), 81–101, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21522-4_4.

[3] Democratic innovation is a sub-field in democracy and policy studies that seeks to bridge private sector business-driven creative destruction (see Mariana Mazzucato, The Value of Everything (London: Penguin Press, 2017)), but also tries to highlight the connection between civil society initiatives with open governments (see Christian Boudreau, ‘Reuse of Open Data in Quebec: From Economic Development to Government Transparency’, International Review of Administrative Sciences, 16 January 2020, https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852319884628).

[4] The literature on the subject is mixed and recent. See, for example Amir Hossein Rahdari, ‘Hyper-Transparency: The Stakeholders Uprising’, in Corporate Responsibility and Stakeholding, vol. 10, Developments in Corporate Governance and Responsibility, 2016, 3–30, https://doi.org/10.1108/S2043-052320160000010002; Andrea Bonime-Blanc, The Reputation Risk Handbook: Surviving and Thriving in the Age of Hyper-Transparency (London: Routledge, 2017); and Mark Wever et al., ‘Transdisciplinary Approach to Hyper-Transparency’, Transdisciplinary Engineering for Complex Socio-Technical Systems – Real-Life Applications, 2020, 60–69, https://doi.org/10.3233/ATDE200061.

[5] Many of whom, coincidentally, argue in favour of the limited transparency approach. See, for example, Giuseppe Albanese et al., ‘Transparency, Civic Capital and Political Accountability: A Virtuous Relation?’, KYKLOS 74 no. 2 (2021): 155-169, https://doi.org/10.1111/kykl.12260; Mike Ananny and Kate Crawford, ‘Seeing without Knowing: Limitations of the Transparency Ideal and Its Application to Algorithmic Accountability’, New Media & Society 20, no. 3 (March 2018): 973–89, https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444816676645; and Stephan Grimmelikhuijsen, ‘A Good Man but a Bad Wizard. About the Limits and Future of Transparency of Democratic Governments’, Information Polity 17, no. 3,4 (1 January 2012): 293–302, https://doi.org/10.3233/IP-2012-000288.

[6] An initial (and current) motivation was the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto, by Aaron Swartz. Please have a read and spread: https://openaccessmanifesto.wordpress.com/guerilla-open-access-manifesto/