The Adoption of Transparency Policies in Global Governance Institutions: Justifications, Effects, and Implications

Abstract

Formal transparency policies are increasingly prevalent in global governance institutions, partially attenuating the influence in these institutions of practices of secrecy inherited from interstate diplomacy. This article assesses the incidence and specific characteristics of formal transparency policies across a select group of institutions and outlines some of the justifications given for these policies-including justifications based on the publicness of these institutions-and for the more controversial exceptions to transparency, such as the exception for deliberative materials. It examines three drivers affecting the adoption, form, and content of transparency policies and other transparency measures in these institutions: spillover from national transparency laws and policies, growth in the reach and significance of authority exercised in and through global institutions, and criticism of global institutions by influential states and nongovernmental organizations. Twelve hypotheses are proposed about the effects, for states, nonstate actors, and global governance institutions, of transparency measures-formal policies and other steps to increase transparency-in global governance institutions. Finally, the article considers some implications of transparency measures for structures of political power and authority beyond the state and for global administrative law.

Transparency in transnational governance: The determinants of information disclosure of voluntary sustainability programs

“…As a norm diffuses in a population of organizations, adoption becomes the "appropriate" thing to do and non-adopters risk challenges to their legitimacy or even their survival. This peer pressure mechanism has been described in several studies examining transparency practices at the domestic, international, and transnational level (Dingwerth & Pattberg 2009;Donaldson & Kingsbury 2013;Berliner 2014). For example, Donaldson and Kingsbury (2013) argue that global governance institutions become more receptive to transparency norms if their peer institutions have adopted such policies.…”

“…Berliner ). In a similar way, scholars of IR have begun to analyze and compare the transparency policies of global governance institutions (Grigorescu ; Donaldson & Kingsbury ). Studying formal transparency polices has clear advantages.…”

La corrupción y la transparencia de las administraciones públicas: un estudio empírico en territorios de paz en Colombia

“…Por otra parte, la transparencia activa se ha materializado a partir de un mayor número de herramientas, ya sean del orden legal (leyes), administrativo (regulaciones) o de gestión (procesos y prácticas) (Villeneuve, 2014). En este sentido, se han emitido leyes de transparencia y de acceso a la información que posibilitan la divulgación de información a los ciudadanos (Farioli et al, 2015;Donaldson & Kingsbury, 2013;Relly & Sabharwal, 2009;Mendel, 2008), con el fin de responder a la demanda social por la información, como manifestación de transparencia que ha surgido desde los primeros años del siglo XXI (Ávila & Romero, 2013).…”

Learning from the Commission case: The comparative study of management change in international public administrations

“…For each section, a list of relevant items in the annual report was identified and each item was coded absent or present. Using a similar approach, Donaldson and Kingsbury () collected data on the year of introduction of different types of transparency policies.…”