Assessing Government Transparency: An Interpretive Framework

• Author: Paul ’t Hart,Albert Meijer,Ben Worthy
• DOI: 10.1177/0095399715598341
• Published date: 01 April 2018
• Date: 01 April 2018
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399715598341

Administration & Society

2018, Vol. 50(4) 501 –526

© The Author(s) 2015

DOI: 10.1177/0095399715598341

journals.sagepub.com/home/aas

Article

Assessing Government

Transparency: An

Interpretive Framework

Albert Meijer1, Paul ’t Hart1, and Ben Worthy2

Abstract

How can we evaluate government transparency arrangements? While the

complexity and contextuality of the values at stake defy straightforward

measurement, this article provides an interpretative framework to guide

and structure assessments of government transparency. In this framework,

we discern criteria clusters for political transparency—democracy, the

constitutional state, and social learning capacity—and for administrative

transparency—economy/efficiency, integrity, and resilience. The framework

provides a structured “helicopter view” of the dimensions that are relevant

for a contextual assessment of transparency. An illustrative case discussion

of the introduction of Freedom of Information (FOI) in the United Kingdom

demonstrates its utility.

Keywords

transparency, FOI, information

Introduction

Transparency is supposed to make governments less corrupt, more efficient,

more democratic, and more legitimate (Hood & Heald, 2006). Roberts (2006)

1Utrecht School of Governance, The Netherlands

2Birkbeck College, London, UK

Corresponding Author:

Albert Meijer, Utrecht School of Governance, Bijlhouwerstraat 6, 3511 ZC Utrecht, The

Netherlands.

Email: a.j.meijer@uu.nl

598341AASXXX10.1177/0095399715598341Administration & SocietyMeijer et al.

research-article2015

502 Administration & Society 50(4)

describes how Freedom of Information (FOI) as an idea and a practice has

spread around the world in the past decades and even authoritarian states like

China are now embracing transparency. At the same time, there is much resis-

tance to far-reaching forms of transparency, and not only from government

bureaucrats clinging to convenient traditions. Etzioni (2010) argues that

transparency is overrated and by no means able to produce the expected ben-

efits and O’Neill (2002) argues that transparency erodes trust and undermines

governance. Other skeptics highlight its opportunity costs and unintended

consequences (Bannister & Connolly, 2011; Erkkilä, 2012, pp. 21-28,

226-229).

These transparency debates imply a variety of assumptions, but the

absence of a normative bedrock results in often confusing exchanges, “dia-

logues of the deaf” rather than a productive deliberative engagement. We fill

this gap in the academic literature by developing a comprehensive frame-

work for evaluating transparency. To escape the categorical and dichotomous

nature of the discussions, we introduce a meta-level criteria map that can be

used to interpret transparency debates and guide the (collective) assessment

of specific transparency arrangements. Our framework forms the basis for an

interpretative rather than a calculative evaluation of government transpar-

ency (Lagsten & Goldkuhl, 2008; Werner, 1978): This interpretative assess-

ment framework provides a structured “helicopter view” of the dimensions

that are relevant for assessing both existing and proposed transparency

arrangements. Our ambition is to develop a framework that can form the

basis for an interpretative assessment of transparency in a specific context.

A key problem in transparency assessment is that the (political, adminis-

trative, institutional, cultural, demographic) contexts in which transparency

is constructed vary considerably. Transparency is developed in democratic

but also authoritarian states (Rodan, 2004), in adversarial but also consensual

political cultures (Erkkilä, 2012), in countries with a highly developed or

limited civil sector with strong NGOs and media (Welch, 2012) and for a

highly educated and information-savvy or low-educated population

(Bannister & Connolly, 2011). We surmise, however, that the underlying

value clusters at stake in designing and assessing government transparency

are—or at least ought to be—broadly similar across contexts.

In the construction of the interpretative assessment framework, we start by

making a distinction between transparency in the political and administrative

realms of “government.” Building an assessment framework of government

at this level of abstraction is exceedingly complicated and needs to be based

on a broad overview of normative approaches of government. After an explo-

ration of previous efforts to categorize evaluative frameworks, we selected

Bovens, Schillemans, and ’t Hart’s (2008) framework for accountability