Transparency in Historical Perspective

Abstract

Transparency is a term that has attained quasi-religious significance in debate over governance and institutional design. Today, it is pervasive in the jargon of business governance as well as that of governments and international bodies, and has been used almost to saturation point in all of those domains over the past decade. This chapter maps out some of the different strains and meanings of the term and doctrine. Like many other notions of a quasi-religious nature, transparency is more often preached than practised, more often invoked than defined, and indeed might ironically be said to be mystic in essence, at least to some extent. The English philosopher Jeremy Bentham seems to have been the first to use ‘transparency’ in its modern governance-related sense in English. The chapter also discusses transparency in international governance, transparency in national and sub-national government, and transparency and corporate governance.

Political determinants of fiscal transparency: a panel data empirical investigation

“…Although fiscal transparency is "more often invoked than defined" (Hood, 2006), p.3) a number of alternative definitions have been provided by scholars (James E Alt & Lassen, 2006a, 2006bBastida & Benito, 2007;Kopits & Craig, 1998;Poterba & Von Hagen, 1999), all basically sharing the idea that it consists in the timely and systematic disclosure of internationally comparable and reliable information concerning governments' budget data (Kopits & Craig, 1998).…”

Intervenientes da Transparência Orçamentária Pública a Nível Nacional

“…No âmbito internacional a transparência é considerada por pesquisadores em administração pública como um valor democrático que fortalece a confiança e a boa governança, aumenta o desempenho, torna os governos mais responsáveis e reduz a corrupção (HOOD, 2006;MEIJER, 2009;GRIMMELIKHUIJSEN;WELCH, 2012 O acesso à informação é fator fundamental para a promoção da transparência. Governo de países que possuem leis de acesso à informação, infraestrutura de telecomunicações, iniciativas de e-government, imprensa livre e maior renda, tendem a ser percebidos como mais transparentes pelos cidadãos (RELLY;SABHAWAL, 2008).…”

Transparency and Trust in Government (2007–2014): A Comparative Study

“…Governments claim that the public can obtain information and use it to verify that they work in the citizens' interests. From a philosophical point of view, Bentham directly connects secrecy with conspiracy and thus affi rms that public offi cials will be less tempted to misuse power because of external monitoring (Hood 2006). Despite such support, coming from both the governments and the citizens, one can note that, in some countries, there has been relatively low usage of the new legislative instruments so far.…”

“…Transparency is frequently opposed to opacity and secrecy, a position already defended by philosophers of the 18 th century, mainly as a reaction against political absolutism, which prevailed at the time (Hood 2006). Th e debate about the integrity of the state and the fi ght against conspiracy is still vivid nowadays, and administrative secrecy remains a key issue in contemporary governance.…”