The Information-Gathering Matrix: A Framework for Conceptualizing the Use of Freedom of Information Laws

• Date: 01 April 2018
• Author: Ben Worthy,Gregory Michener
• DOI: 10.1177/0095399715590825
• Published date: 01 April 2018
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399715590825

Administration & Society

2018, Vol. 50(4) 476 –500

© The Author(s) 2015

DOI: 10.1177/0095399715590825

journals.sagepub.com/home/aas

Article

The Information-

Gathering Matrix:

A Framework for

Conceptualizing the

Use of Freedom of

Information Laws

Gregory Michener1 and Ben Worthy2

Abstract

Scholarship on transparency and freedom of information (FOI) conveys

an overwhelmingly “political” narrative. Most uses of FOI, however, are

private and nonpolitical in nature. This article explores the gap between

the literature and empirical reality by means of an “Information-Gathering

Matrix,” a framework for conceptualizing the motivations, uses, and impacts

associated with FOI. Following a broad literature review, case studies

illustrate that while FOI uses may be multifarious and prima facie nonpolitical,

at least three of the matrix’s four quadrants—from the public to the private

and the political to the nonpolitical—frequently tend toward politicization.

Keywords

freedom of information, access to information, transparency, information-

gathering

1EBAPE Fundação Getulio Vargas, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

2Department of Politics, University of London, Birkbeck, UK

Corresponding Author:

Gregory Michener, EBAPE Fundação Getulio Vargas, 190 Praia de Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro

22250-900, Brazil.

Email: gregory.michener@fgv.br

590825AASXXX10.1177/0095399715590825Administration & SocietyMichener and Worthy

research-article2015

Michener and Worthy 477

In the year 2000, there were less than 35 FOI laws in force around the world;

a decade and half later, there are nearly 3 times this number. Unsurprisingly,

research on FOI has not been able to keep pace with the rapid diffusion of

these laws. Case-in-point, in 2007, veteran FOI scholar Alasdair Roberts

(2007) posed several basic research questions that still lack good answers:

“Who actually uses RTI [right to information] laws? What sort of information

do different kinds of requesters usually seek? What do requesters actually do

with the information they obtain under RTI?” (p. 7). The diversity of ways in

which FOI laws are used to gather information is strikingly understudied1 and

under-theorized. In effect, at first glance, it appears that scholarship on FOI is

composed of subjective experiences that cast these laws in a narrowly “politi-

cal” light. This dominant political narrative does not seem representative of

the full spectrum of requests, of which the largest proportion is privately

motivated and nonpolitical.

How can the wide variety of motivations for using FOI – most of them

ostensibly private –“funnel” into such a narrow “political” view of this legal

right? “Political” narratives undoubtedly feed negative views among govern-

ment officials and create misperceptions surrounding a fundamental right.

This article begins to cast some light on this apparent paradox. Approaches

toward information and information-gathering invariably involve some com-

bination of public or private concerns and political or nonpolitical rationales.

Combining these two dichotomies, we obtain four quadrants, two political

(political-private/political-public) and two nonpolitical (nonpolitical-private/

nonpolitical-public). We refer to this analytical construct as an “Information-

Gathering Matrix.” We deploy the Matrix as a heuristic device to help explain

the dominant political narrative surrounding FOI.

Taken at face value, the motivations of FOI requesters invoke two prima

facie motivations—to question the government, or to be informed, typi-

cally as a pre-political act. Yet no matter whether requests are prima facie

private or nonpolitical, FOI remains a public service that presupposes gov-

ernmental responsibility and, as countless works have noted (for example,

Hood, 2007; Michener, 2011; Roberts, 2006), tends to trigger defensive

speculation on the part of officials. This defensive posture augments the

probability that information of any kind—especially information with a

real or potential “public” character—will become political. Independent of

context, the identity of requesters or their extrinsic or intrinsic motiva-

tions, the Information-Gathering Matrix helps elucidate that three of its

four quadrants frequently tend to produce political responses (public–

political, public–nonpolitical, and private–political). The one quadrant

that accounts for most FOI requests—the nonpolitical-private quadrant—

escapes politicization sometimes, but not always. These propositions are