Commentary: A Deeper Understanding of the Peaks and Pitfalls of Transparency in Government at Work

• Published date: 01 May 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12225
• Date: 01 May 2014

Commentary

Juanita Scarlett is managing director

at Park Strategies, LLC, where she advises

clients in the energy, education, economic

development, and health care sectors on

their public policy and public affairs objec-

tives. She was senior advisor to Governor

Andrew Cuomo, serving as executive vice

president of the Empire State Development

Corporation. Prior to her work there, she

was director of intergovernmental affairs to

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Scarlett

also served as press secretary to Attorney

General Eliot Spitzer.

E-mail: juanitascarlett@gmail.com

372 Public Administration Review • May | June 2014

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 74, Iss. 3, pp. 372–373. © 2014 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12225.

Juanita Scarlett

Park Strategies, LLC

A

ll too often, the link between transparency

and trust in government is oversimplif‌i ed by

both supporters and critics of public sector

transparency measures such as the so-called sunshine

laws. Proponents believe that transparency can bring

increased public trust in government by reducing

secrecy and increasing understanding of decision

making. Detractors, on the other hand, argue that the

abuse of freedom of information laws, combined with

the political and legal fallout that can follow from

negative headlines, can perversely reduce public trust

rather than increase it.

 e article by Jenny de Fine Licht, “Policy Area

as a Potential Moderator of Transparency Ef‌f ects:

An Experiment,” presents a deeper and fascinating

examination of the duality of transparency in political

decision making and government policy making.  e

article gets it just right by showing that transparency

is not a one-size-f‌i ts-all proposition: in some cases,

particularly when the stakes involve relatively routine

policies and trade-of‌f s, transparency can produce the

desired ef‌f ect and legitimize the process. In other

cases, however—particularly when life-and-death or

culturally sensitive policies are at play—maximizing

transparency can backf‌i re by leading the public to

believe that policy makers are careless, uninformed, or

unethical.

De Fine Licht’s work makes clear that transparency,

like many other parts of public leadership, is not a

static set of procedures to be followed but rather a

set of tools that must be managed carefully. During

my nearly 20 years in New York State government,

I discovered that—as doctors know—even the most

powerful medicine has to be administered at the

proper time and in the correct dosage to cure rather

than kill a patient. By the same token, skilled public

of‌f‌i cials must master the art of applying the proper

degree of transparency to a particular challenge.

In 2003, when New York State attorney general Eliot

Spitzer undertook a sustained campaign to investigate

and prosecute wrongdoing in the f‌i nancial services

industry, the ef‌f ort required educating the public

about the Martin Act, a powerful but little-used state

law unique to New York. Public understanding of the

law, which conferred broad authority on the attorney

general, was crucial to persuading the public that

Spitzer’s crusade, while aggressive, was necessary, nar-

rowly tailored, and legal. As de Fine Licht would put

it, Spitzer committed to transparency of process and

rationale and built public support for the policy.

By contrast, the long-standing, opaque operations of

the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey—

even before the “Bridgegate” scandal, in which

of‌f‌i cials allegedly orchestrated a horrif‌i c, man-made

traf‌f‌i c jam lasting several days as an act of political

punishment—have made the public skeptical of the

Port Authority’s honesty and competence.

A case in point is a set of tough toll increases enacted

in 2011. According to former Port Authority of‌f‌i cials,

a cynical, choreographed process was pursued in the

name of transparency in order to push the increase

through. First, a deliberately inf‌l ated toll hike was

announced, after which the governors of New York

and New Jersey, who appoint the agency’s commis-

sioners, expressed surprise and outrage about the

actions of their appointees and demanded a lower (but

still sizable) increase.

 e agency issued a blitz of 36 press releases report-

edly by supporters of a toll hike, followed by an

unusual set of eight public hearings scheduled for a

single day—during morning and evening rush hours

to minimize participation by a hostile public.  e end

result was a hike—and a deeply skeptical public that

probably had less trust in the authority than if it had

attempted a more serious ef‌f ort to get public input.

A f‌i nal example of the politics of transparency is

former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s

penchant for enacting policies on an experimental

basis, openly informing the public that some ef‌f orts

A Deeper Understanding of the Peaks and Pitfalls

of Transparency in Government at Work