A Partial Revolution: The Diplomatic Ethos and Transparency in Intergovernmental Organizations

• Date: 01 July 2004
• Published date: 01 July 2004
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2004.00388.x
• Author: Alasdair Roberts

410 Public Administration Review •July/August 2004, Vol. 64, No. 4

Alasdair Roberts

Syracuse University

A Partial Revolution: The Diplomatic Ethos and

Transparency in Intergovernmental Organizations

The World Trade Organization and other intergovernmental organizations confront a crisis of

legitimacy that is partly rooted in their perceived secretiveness. These organizations have at-

tempted to address this crisis by promising “the maximum possible level of transparency,” but in

fact, the improvements have been modest. Policies regarding access to information about inter-

governmental organizations’ operations continue to accommodate conventions of diplomatic con-

fidentiality. Such conventions are more likely to be breached in areas where disclosure of informa-

tion is essential to economic liberalization. A true revolution in transparency would require more

rigorous policies on disclosure of information held by intergovernmental organizations such as the

World Trade Organization, and could be justified as a prerequisite for the exercise of basic

human rights, such as the right to participate fully in the policy-making process.

The crisis of legitimacy that now confronts intergov-

ernmental organizations such as the World Trade Organi-

zation (WTO) has a precedent.1 In the decades following

the Great Depression, the responsibilities of governments

in the advanced capitalist democracies grew substantially.

This involved a rapid expansion in the number, size, and

influence of administrative agencies that exercised discre-

tion given to them through statutes, or that applied regula-

tions made under authority of law but without close re-

view by legislatures. Power seemed to shift from legislators

to bureaucrats, provoking complaints that presaged those

now made against the restructured public sector. Bureau-

crats, it was said, exercised extraordinary influence—but

did so secretively and often capriciously. Administrative

agencies, said U.S. Supreme Court justice Robert Jack-

son, had formed a strange “fourth branch” of government

that deranged traditional ideas about the division and con-

trol of political power (Rosenbloom 2000). In Britain, Lord

Gordon Hewart complained about the “new despotism” of

bureaucratic government (Hewart 1929).

Throughout the postwar years, the Western democra-

cies constructed a new regime to regulate and legitimize

bureaucratic power. New laws compelled administrative

agencies to adopt more open procedures for rulemaking

and established mechanisms by which citizens could ap-

peal adverse decisions. Courts became more liberal in pro-

viding citizens with judicial remedies for administrative

malfeasance. The construction of this new regime required

a revision of the long-held belief that the control of admin-

istrative behavior should be the sole responsibility of po-

litical executives and legislators. Citizens acquired a new

set of rights that could be asserted directly against the new

fourth branch of government. One of these was the right

of access to information held by departments and agen-

cies—established first, and narrowly, in laws such as the

U.S. Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, and later, and

more broadly, in laws such as the Freedom of Information

Act of 1966. Comparable legislation was adopted in other

countries. By the end of the century, it was roughly accu-

rate to say that a right to information had been recognized

as a prerequisite for the legitimate exercise of public au-

thority—a “constitutive principle” of governance within

the nation state (Picciotto 2000).

However, the effectiveness of this new regulatory re-

gime in legitimizing the exercise of public power was soon

diminished because of another and equally profound shift

in the structure of governmental authority. Influence over

the content of public policy has moved from domestic au-

thorities to intergovernmental organizations such as the In-

Alasdair Roberts is an associate professor of public administration in the

Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University. He

is also director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute. He received a juris

doctorate from the University of Toronto and holds a doctorate in public

policy from Harvard University. E-mail: asrobert@maxwell.syr.edu.