Hopes and delusions of transparency

Abstract

Changing the transparency of principals, agents, or technologies affects their power relations with the users of transparency. I explore the complexity of these changes, drawing for concreteness on prescriptions of transparency ranging from the Age of Enlightenment to the 2000 Kyushu-Okinawa and earlier G8 summits and the transparency codes promulgated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The discussion ranges from gifts and exchanges of transparency to demands for international transfers of transparency. The main message that emerges is that greater transparency, far from having the characteristics of a simple public good which yield nonrival benefits to all consumers of this quality, is bound to be a contentious issue between the parties jockeying for control. While greater transparency of political agents can be helpful to principals even when not necessary or sufficient for improved governance, greater transparency of the principals themselves often harms them.